


(that makes you) The Scarlet Witch

by KatyObsesses



Category: MCU, Marvel, WandaVision (TV)
Genre: Battle Couple, Character Analysis, F/M, Gen, Not Beta Read, Wanda Maximoff Needs a Hug, WandaVision spoilers, War is hell, r/fanfiction trope bingo March 2021, trope bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-19 11:53:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29998944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatyObsesses/pseuds/KatyObsesses
Summary: A Wanda Maximoff Character Analysis.WandaVision Spoilers.Written for the r/fanfiction March 2021 Trope Bingo.War is hell.Wanda’s whole life had been clouded in War.Wanda was 10 when her parents were ripped away from her. She became a Volunteer to change the world. She became an experiment. She became enhanced.She joined Ultron hoping to avenge her country. She became an Avenger trying to defend it. She lost her twin, her heart, in the battle.In her grief she lost control, and people were killed. When she tried to right that wrong she was imprisoned.She was on the run when she fell in love. Stolen moments. Secret meetings. He promised her a future and asked her to stay.But that was ripped away from her too.She had to watch the love of her life die.Twice.Once by her own hand. She had welcomed death after that. His body in her arms.She had then been brought back, empty handed.It isn’t hard to see why she finally cracked.
Relationships: Billy Kaplan & Wanda Maximoff & Tommy Shepherd & Vision, Pietro Maximoff & Wanda Maximoff, Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23
Collections: /r/FanFiction Trope Bingo Events





	(that makes you) The Scarlet Witch

**Author's Note:**

> **Written for the r/fanfiction March 2021 Trope Bingo!**   
>  _My card: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tlc3dRSdwewyEBc-EhdQ09Q7d3Og2Ph4/view?usp=sharing_
> 
> Mostly for the squares: _ **War is Hell**_ **and _Battle Couples_**
> 
> (Could also encompass: _Alone in a Crowd - Home Sweet Home - Secret Relationship - Happily Married - Babies Ever After - Spoof Aesop_ but I have a fluffy Glee fic in mind to tackle most of those.)
> 
> I had planned on this being a ~10,000 word character analysis type of fic, but it grew into this behemoth when I realised just how much of Wanda we had in the MCU. She is such a complex character, and with such emotion. I love her, and she needs a hug. I kept shouting at my laptop for Monica to hug her while watching the ending of WandaVision.

Wanda was 10, not stupid.

She knew her life was nothing like the sitcoms she watched with her family. She knew that a war was raging right outside the windows. She could hear the shouting, the gunfire, the cries, through the perpetually open window. She  _ knew _ .

But she was grateful her parents tried to keep the reality from her and Pietro. She was grateful that they distracted them when the worst happened, when the gunfire sounded as if it came from the street below.

They were risking a lot, smuggling the american sitcoms into their home. Wanda knew that, too. She knew the shows they watched were illegal in Sokovia, knew that they were seen as capitalist propaganda that went against Sokovia’s communist manifesto.

Again, she was not stupid.

So she knew why her parents were putting on her favourite episode of  _ The Dick Van Dyke Show _ . She could hear the shouting and the gunfire and the cries. She ignored them.

“What is ‘shenanigan’ again?” Pietro asked as they settled in front of the television.

“‘Shenanigan’ is like ‘problem’.” Wanda answered. She knew a lot of English, she found the language was as fascinating as it was complicated, but she picked it up quickly when they watched their illegal DVDs and read their illegal books. Pietro wasn’t quite as quick of a learner. 

“Except more silly than scary.” She continued explaining to Pietro, “But can sometimes be a little scary.”

“Yeah!” Her mother enthused, her pride obvious. “Like mischief.”

“But a silly mischief,” Her father added, sitting heavily on the couch. “That always becomes fine.”

That was why Wanda loved these American sitcoms. Why she always requested them on TV night. Pietro liked them, but he preferred the Sci-fi shows like _ Doctor Who _ . She liked sitcoms because they started and ended with happiness. Something happened in between, a situation or a problem, but it was always silly, always comedy, and always resolved by the end of the episode.

Like in this episode.

It started with Rob watching a scary movie with aliens who only ate walnuts, who breathed water, who had eyes in the backs of their heads and no thumbs. It was silly. And it was silly that Laura was so scared of it, her covers flung over her head as she begged Rob to turn the TV off.

Rob wasn’t afraid of it, he also found it silly. Just a silly little movie that could never be real because  _ aliens _ weren’t real. He teased Laura before they went to sleep, pretending to be one of the aliens. And when he woke up there were walnuts all over the floor. Then Laura tried to make him scrambled walnuts instead of eggs. And sent him away with a walnut in his pocket for breakfast. Rob thought she was teasing him like he had done to her the night before.

He kept going about his day. He went to work, where his friends and boss continued the teasing, until he came to the conclusion that he must be in a nightmare. It was sort of scary, but mostly silly. Like nightmares usually are in the light of the morning. Silly visions that your subconscious makes up to try to scare you.

Wanda had had many nightmares in her short life. She was used to them.

She loved watching these sitcoms. They were an escape. While watching them she could drown out reality and pretend she was there. Maybe she was a part of the live studio audience, watching as they filmed the scenes, laughing at all the right places.

It was nearing the end of the episode - Laura had just entered on an avalanche of walnuts and Rob was about to wake up, they were all laughing - when the explosion came.

The house was cold now. The warmth of family, gone.

As Wanda looked up she could see the sky instead of the ceiling.

She could see dust, and smoke, and bright orange flames.

There were explosions, and sirens, and ash raining down from the sky.

The couch was buried under rubble.

Her parents were buried under rubble.

“WANDA!” She heard Pietro shout in his loud voice, as a high pitched whistling came from the sky.

They ran.

And they hid.

The bed  _ couldn’t _ be as stable as they needed - Wanda was surprised it was still as intact as it was - but it gave them a sort of sense of security as they hid underneath it together.

A bomb hit the floor.

_ Stark Industries _ .

A blinking red light.

“Wanda, are you okay?” Pietro asked her in their mother tongue. It almost felt strange, hearing it after the past 20 minutes of nothing but English. “We have to get out of here.”

“We can’t.” She told him, looking away from the blinking red light.

“Shh.” Pietro said, “Do you hear that?”

People. There were people.

“Maybe they’re here to help.” He continued, hope and optimism clouding his words.

“Maybe they’re the ones who sent it.” She replied, logic and pessimism clouding hers.

Wanda loved the innocence her brother had, but she did not share it.

There were the sounds of aircraft, the beeping of the bomb not yet detonated, and screams.

Wanda recognised some of those screams.

Her eyes drifted to the television set. It was somehow still playing the episode, static occasionally interrupting it.

“ _ Oh, I heard a scream. _ ” Laura was saying.

“ _ Oh, I must’ve screamed _ .” Rob replied. “ _ Oh what a nightmare, what a nightmare… _ ”

He’d awakened from his nightmare.

Maybe they would awaken from theirs.

“At the end of the episode, you realise it was all a bad dream.” She told Pietro in English, “None of it was real.”

Her eyes drifted back to the beeping bomb and she reached towards it.

If this  _ was  _ a nightmare, she could rewrite it’s ending.

_ I want the bomb to not explode. I want us to be safe.  _ She chanted in her head.  _ I want the bomb to not explode. I want us to be  _ safe _. _

Nightmare or not, the mantra seemed to work.

Or maybe the bomb had been defective in the first place.

That was the more likely scenario. The more logical.

They weren’t rescued for two days.

For two whole days Wanda didn’t dare to sleep, didn’t dare to move.

She had to keep him  _ safe _ . Had to keep them both _ safe _ .

She just kept  _ wishing _ .

Hydra was… well… it was better than being dead. She supposed.

And she was helping. She had volunteered for this. This would help her country.

So what if she was malnourished. So what if she was dressed in rags. So what if she was confined in a cell with only her brother for company. They had a TV. They let them watch whatever they wanted. She had missed these shows while they had been in the orphanage. The characters were her friends, their worlds became hers. She would dream inside of them. Dream of the future that she was helping create, where Sokovia was like these sitcoms. No more wars, no more poverty, just silly little shenanigans that resolved themselves in the end.

That was all she needed. A show to escape inside of, her brother, and a sense of purpose.

This was her purpose.

She wasn’t entirely sure what Strucker and his men were doing, only that they promised it would bring prosperity to her country.

She wanted to change the world.

The door closed behind her and she was alone in the room. She never liked being in their little experiment chambers. She hated the mirrors. She knew they were one way glass, that the scientists could look at her while all she could look at was herself. Her face gaunt, her hair limp, and the clothes she was wearing baggy and sack like.

When she was in her cell she could pretend she looked like Carol Brady, or Samantha Stevens. When she was in here she could no longer avoid reality.

“ _ For our notes, Miss Maximoff _ .” The voice of a scientist floated over the speakers. Their English was tinged with a German accent that always sent shivers down her spine. Germans were, more often than not, the bad guys in the media she consumed. But these Germans promised to change the world for the better, so maybe these Germans were not so bad. “ _ Can you please state your name and confirm your status? _ ”

There was a glowing staff at one end of the room and she couldn’t tear her eyes away from it.

“Wanda Maximoff, Volunteer.” She recited and waited for further instructions.

“ _ Touch the sample _ .”

“So, I… I just…” She asked, looking for clarification even as she walked towards the blue glow. It felt almost as though it was calling her.

She reached out a hand.

It started to shake in it’s holder.

The next thing she knew she was in an isolation chamber not wholly unlike the room she shared with Pietro. The TV showing an episode of The Brady Bunch.

She didn’t remember what had happened, only the remnants of a dream.

Blue light turning to gold. The sense of comfort, of warmth, of home.

A blast of air almost pushing her off of her feet.

A figure silhouetted against the light, but somehow, also, glowing red.

She didn’t know what the dream meant, or what had caused her to pass out.

But she felt different now.

Powerful.

Strong.

She stood, focusing on the television.

_ Off,  _ she willed and it obeyed.

_ On, _ it obeyed.

_ Rewind _ , the episode played backwards, the voices of the characters starting to sound demonic, otherworldly.

What had they done to her?

She blinked the thought from her mind and sat back on the hard bed.

_ Play _ .

She settled in and escaped into the 70s.

She’d let herself wonder later.

Pietro was fast. He found it difficult to control his speed. Wanda found his newfound ability ironic. He’d never been fast before.

But  _ her _ power… her power felt like it  _ fit _ .

It reminded her of  _ Bewitched _ , of Samantha Steven and  _ her  _ abilities. But Wanda wasn’t a witch, because witches didn’t exist.

Wanda was something else.

She was enhanced.

She could manipulate the world around her, move things with her mind, she could make people see things - their darkest memories, their nightmares, she could make them seem  _ real _ . She felt powerful when she made the scientists scream as she made them relive their own traumas. But she always stopped when they told her to. She was just exploring, now. Figuring out the extent of her own powers. She wasn’t meant to hurt  _ these  _ people, only the ones out there who would hurt  _ her, _ hurt  _ Pietro _ , hurt  _ Sokovia. _

America.

Tony Stark.

The Avengers.

“ _ Report to your stations immediately, this is not a drill, we are under attack, we are under attack. _ ”

Finally, the battle was about to begin. Finally, she could seek revenge for the childhood she had lost to the hands of Tony Stark. She looked over at Pietro and gripped his hand in hers.

They were going to avenge their parents.

“Send out the twins.” She heard Dr. List say as they stood, waiting for their orders.

She just wanted to fight.

“It’s too soon.” Strucker said.

“It’s what they signed up for.” Dr. List replied.

“My men can hold them.”

She could go without orders, go and find Tony Stark and make him pay for the damage he’d wrought on her country.

“We will not yield,” Strucker said, addressing the compound as a whole, “The American’s sent their circus freaks to test us. We will send them back in bags. No surrender!”

“No surrender!” Everyone echoed.

Strucker was right, they could send the Avengers home in bags.

She shared a look with Pietro and he was off, running right out into the fray.

She stayed behind. Tony Stark was heading  _ this  _ way, for the scepter. She would meet him there.

It wasn’t Tony Stark she found first, but it was the next best thing. The personification of America himself.

She threw him down the stairs.

Now where was Tony Stark?

She found him where Strucker kept his alien tech. Because apparently aliens  _ were  _ real, only they weren’t obsessed with walnuts, or breathed water, or took away your thumbs. They, apparently, made weapons. Powerful ones. And big metal beasts. And suits of armour.

She followed Stark as he walked up to the scepter. He sounded relieved as he told his teammates he’d found it.

She was about to make him  _ suffer _ .

Tony Stark’s mind was easy to manipulate. He was clever. That meant he was imaginative. And his imaginative mind was already working against him. It was already telling him every little detail that could go wrong. Every little detail that already  _ had _ . He was already tearing himself apart from the inside. Just one little push and…

She could force him into a nightmare.

Like the one he’d forced upon her all those years ago.

“You’re just going to let him take it?” Pietro asked, as she did nothing to stop Tony Stark from grabbing the scepter with his gauntleted hand.

She smiled.

He was already falling apart. Even if he took the scepter they would lose.

_ Come to the old abandoned church _ . The note had said.  _ Together we can bring about a time of peace. _

Wanda wasn’t entirely sure why she and Pietro decided to turn up, but they did. The Church had been bombed not long before their apartment had been but Wanda still remembered the stained glass windows it used to have and the way the sunlight streamed through them on Sunday mornings, casting the entire church in technicolour.

“Talk,” She demanded, “And if you are wasting our time-”

“Did you know this church is in the exact centre of the city?” The cloaked figure interrupted.

She tried to read their intentions as they talked, but all she could feel inside the church was Pietro, his mind a familiar warmth.

“The elders decreed it so that everyone could be equally close to God. I like that. The geometry of belief.”

Why couldn’t she look inside his head?

“You’re wondering why you can’t look inside my head.” The stranger said. Wanda wondered if he was like  _ her _ , able to tell what a person was thinking.

“Sometimes it’s hard.” She lied, it was never heard, what used to be hard was switching it  _ off _ . But she’d managed to do that eventually. She hadn’t wanted to be inside the heads of some of the scientists, she remembered, but she couldn’t exactly remember  _ why _ . She remembered them being loud, and rude, and something else. Something sinister. But they were the good guys, they wanted prosperity for her country, so their minds couldn’t have been sinister. So she’d pushed the thoughts away.

“But sooner or later every man shows himself.”

The stranger stood, his cloak falling the reveal not a man, but a machine.

“Oh, I’m sure they do.” It said and Wanda gasped, walking backwards towards Pietro. “But you needed something more than a man. That’s why you let Stark take the scepter.”

“I didn’t expect...” She said, trailing off as she took in the machine. “But I saw Stark’s fear. I knew it would control him. Make him self-destruct.”

“Everyone creates the thing they dread.” The machine said, pacing the church. “Men of peace create engines of war. Invaders create Avengers. People create... smaller people? Uh… ‘Children’! I lost the word there.”

Wanda had never seen a machine like this, not in real life. It was almost human, but… not. A uncanny facsimile of a human. It was as fascinating as it was terrifying.

“Children,” It continued, “designed to supplant them, to help them... end.”

“Is that why you’ve come?” She asked it, hope in her words. “To end the Avengers?”

“I’ve come to save the world.” It said, “But also… yeah.”

She smiled, she could get on board with that.

“I grab her. Roll under the bed, and the second shell hits. But, it doesn’t go off. It just… sits there in the rubble. Three feet from our faces. And on the side of the shell is painted one word…”

The memory felt almost overwhelming, like she was back there reaching for the shell, wishing with every inch of her being.

“Stark.” She completed Pietro’s story, wishing for Stark’s downfall. For him to  _ suffer _ . The machine cocks it’s head at her, staring, with it’s red eyes, into hers. Searching.

“We were trapped for two days.”

Every effort to save them, every shift of the bricks, Wanda’s wish threatened to fail.

_ This will set it off _ . Wanda’s treacherous thoughts broke through and the beeping seemed to intensify growing faster, and faster, and faster.

She blinked the thought away and  _ wished _ .

_ I want the bomb to not explode. I want us to be safe. I want the bomb to not explode. I want us to be  _ safe.

She repeated the mantra, over and over and over.

“We wait for two days for Tony Stark to kill us.” She said to the machine.

“We will make it right.” It said, then turned to Pietro. “You and I can hurt them…”

It looked right at her, a smirk on it’s mechanical face.

“... But you will tear them apart from the inside.”

She couldn’t wait.

She knew what she was doing would ultimately lead to their victory, to the downfall of The Avengers, of Tony Stark.

But she honestly hated looking into all those innocents’ minds and making them suffer. Most of them didn’t deserve to suffer. They didn’t deserve her going into their old memories and worst fears and making them resurface as nightmares - silly things in the light of the morning, but terrifying things all the same.

Tony Stark deserved it, The Avengers deserved it for being associated with him. But these were just lab techs, researchers, security guards. They were just doing their jobs.

But so was she.

She pushed the guilt away, and carried on.

The only one she didn’t feel guilt for was Strucker.

She’d read his mind before.

She’d known his intentions.

He deserved all the nightmares he got.

“I was sorry to hear about Strucker. But then, he knew what kind of world he was helping to create. Human life, not a growth market.”

Pietro looked confused.

“You didn’t know?”

Wanda wasn’t stupid. She knew, she had just… pushed the thoughts away. She hadn’t  _ wanted  _ to know. She had wanted to believe in the lie they told them, she wanted Pietro, innocent optimistic Pietro, to believe they were telling the truth.

“Is this your first time intimidating someone?” Klaue asked, “I’m afraid I’m not that afraid.”

“Everybody’s afraid of something.” Wanda said.

“Cuttlefish.” Klaue said and began rambling.

She would do much better than cuttlefish when she got her powers on him. 

Ultron was going mad, with power? With something else?

Could she trust this machine? Should she trust it? Was it really going to bring peace? Because so far all it had brought was pain.

All it was making her do was cause  _ pain _ .

Ultron was like…

It was like a child.

It was still learning about the world, still trying to understand.

A child created by Tony Stark with hope of a better future.

Supplant - to supersede and replace - to be better than and take over. But also to usurp, to dethrone, to override and undermine. To end.

Ultron had been made with peace in the mind of its creator. Wanda didn’t like that, the thought of Tony Stark and Peace. But it was true. Ultron was made for  _ peace _ .

So why were they just creating  _ pain. _

“Stark is, he’s a  _ sickness! _ ” Ultron shouted, sounding like a petulant child.

“Ah, junior.” Stark said, landing on the metal catwalk with a  _ clang,  _ “You’re going to break your old man’s heart.”

“If I have to.”

Wanda pushed the revelations away, remembered the bomb and the days to sleeplessness that followed it. The days of orphanage.

“Nobody has to break anything.” Said the man who called himself a God.

“Clearly you’ve never made an omelet.” Ultron snarked.

“He beat me by one second.” Stark interjected.

Wanda frowned in thought, looking between the man and the machine.

Ultron may not look like an Iron Man suit. But it did act like its creator.

“Ah, yes, he’s funny.” Pietro said and Wanda watched him as he talked. “It’s what? Comfortable? Like old times?”

“This was never my life.”

Wanda’s resolve kept falling.

What did Stark mean? This was never his life? Of course this was his life. It had been one of _ his _ bombs that had blown the hole in the wall. It had been one of his bombs that had blinked and beeped and blinked and beeped for two days straight while she had wished for safety.

This had been  _ exactly  _ his life. How can a person be the name of a company and not know what was going on beneath the surface?

“You two can still walk away from this.” Captain America said talking directly to her and Pietro.

“Oh, we will.” Wanda promised, because she knew that much was true. It had to be.

“I know you’ve suffered.” The Captain continued, face morphing into a look of understanding.

Ultron scoffed, chuckled.

“Captain America. God’s righteous man. Pretending you could live without a war.” It said. “I can’t physically throw up in my mouth, but…”

“If you believe in peace then let us keep it.” The God begged. And wasn’t that a sight to see, a God, begging.

“I think you’re confusing ‘peace’ with ‘quiet’”

“What’s the vibranium for?” Stark asked.

“I’m glad you asked that because I wanted to take this time to explain my evil plan.” Ultron replied with sarcasm before he blasted Stark and a battle began.

Wanda could deal with a battle.

She couldn’t deal with the confusion in her mind.

So she buried that, and got to work.

The God was difficult, he may look human, but his mind was not. It was… she had so many years, so many memories she could pull from.

“The girl tried to warp my mind,” He pushed a sentry out of his way, and she kept sifting through the many memories, “Take special care, I doubt a human could keep her at bay.”

There… She’d read about the myth of Valhalla before… she could work with that.

“Fortunately,” She directed his mind to where she wanted it, warped his vision, made it seem real. “I am mighty…”

Wanda was mightier.

The captain, by contrast, was easier.

His mind felt almost familiar.

A lost love. A lost home.

She knew exactly how to make him suffer.

Give him exactly what he wanted.

And then rip it away.

The Black Widow was perhaps the easiest.

All she had lived was pain.

The secret facility. The experiments.

Wanda couldn’t help but pity her. She’d gone through so very much. People had expected so much from her. And through it all she’d tried to push down all the fear, all the worries, all the what ifs, all the guilt. She had warped the memories into new ones. One’s that hurt… less.

Wanda could relate to that, too.

And the ceremony…

Even Hydra hadn’t been that evil.

She was getting sloppy.

She wasn’t expecting the archer to sense her.

“I’ve done the whole mind control thing.” He said as she shook from the electricity coursing through her veins, “Not a fan.”

Pietro pushed him through a window.

It had hurt. But she couldn’t let a little electric shock stop her.

“I want to finish the plan.” She said, panting, “I want the big one.”

The Hulk was probably the easiest to unravel, so close to unravelling all by himself already. 

So much rage.

She understood that as well.

It was making itself a body.

A mix of the metal they stole and artificial human tissue. Topped off with the stone within the scepter.

The stone, once removed from it’s blue casing, glowed gold. It sparked a memory of a dream from within her. It felt like… comfort, warmth.

She remembered blue to gold, a blast of air, a red silhouette. She remembered waking up enhanced.

This was what had given her and Pietro their powers, and now it was being used to create artificial life.

She could read the body, unlike Ultron. The body, it was dreaming, it was alive. It was a he, whereas Ultron was an it, a machine.

She laid her hands on the cradle to better read his dreams. They were many, and waring, almost like he had two separate entities in his head. One was warm and welcoming, almost familiar. The other cold and uninviting, soulless, mechanical. Ultron.

She followed Ultron’s dreams, finally able to read the machine’s thoughts.

She gasped and screamed before pulling away from the cradle and Pietro moved to comfort her.

“How could you?” She asked Ultron, panting.

“How could I what?” It asked.

“You said we would destroy The Avengers.” She said, “Make a better world.”

“It  _ will  _ be better.” It told her.

“When everyone is dead?” She asked it.

She had seen the world destroyed. That’s what it had wanted. Humanity wiped out. That is what he had meant when it had talked about bringing about the end.

Not the end of The Avengers and Tony Stark, but the end of the world.

“That is not -” It cut itself off, “The human race will have every opportunity to improve.”

“And if they don’t?” Pietro asked.

“Ask Noah.” It replied.

“You’re a madman.” She realised. 

“There are more than a dozen extinction level events before even the dinosaurs got theirs. When the earth starts to settle, God throws a stone at it. And believe me, he’s winding up. We have to evolve. There’s no room for the weak.”

It was talking as though it was human. But also as though it were above them. It was pure ego, unrelenting in it’s views.

Nothing she could say would stop it.

She released the scientist as it was distracted, her powers similar enough to the scepters control that it was easy.

“And who decides who’s weak?” Pietro asked.

“Life.” It responded with a laugh. “Life always decides.”

Life did. And Life had decided she was strong. Her and Pietro both - the only living volunteers.

Life would ultimately decide Ultron was weak.

So now they were working with The Avengers. Or, at the very least, on the same side as them.

Ultron had to be stopped. And Pietro and her could help do that.

This was what they were made to do, after all, change the world. Save it.

“Please, don’t do this.” It begged her.

“What choice do we have?” She asked it. Because this was the only choice she could imagine herself choosing. She couldn’t stand by and let this machine destroy the world.

The train had derailed, in trying to stop Ultron she’d managed to… she hadn’t meant to...

“Can you stop this thing?” Captain America asked her, cutting through her guilt ridden thoughts.

She pushed them down.

And she stopped the train.

“The Cradle? Did you get it?” She asked the Captain after seeing to Pietro.

“Stark will take care of it.” He told her and the panic in her chest rose, her breathing stuttered, her heart pounded, she began to feel numb.

“No, he won’t.” She replied.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” The Captain responded after a beat of silence.

But she did know, she’d looked into his mind, sifted through his deepest fears and biggest desires. She’d twisted them, warped them into a nightmare.

“Stark’s not crazy.”

Oh, but he was. She hadn’t made him so, but she’d aggravated it.

“He will do anything to make things right.”

She could tell that The Captain understood what she was saying, but didn’t want to believe it.

“Ultron can’t tell the difference between saving the world and destroying it. Where do you think he gets that?”

“Are you sure she isn’t in your head?” The Hulk asked, gesturing at her.

“I know you’re angry.” She told him, remembering the feeling of rage.

“Oh, we’re well past that. I could choke the life out of you and never change a shade.”

This was why they’d all been so easy to manipulate. They were fractured, held together by only the thinnest of strings. They weren’t a team but a group of people thrust together. They had their moments of unity, but it would all ultimately end in a fight. They all strived towards peace, but their methods clashed.

“You don’t know what’s in there!” She told them, shouting to be heard. “The creature…”

Pietro unplugged the machine and then, with a gunshot, fell through the floor.

Of course, it ended in a fight.

Everyone froze when the God entered the room, powering up the Cradle with his lightning.

And the creature burst free.

It looked almost human, but bright red.

It, he, froze when he caught sight of his reflection and Wanda could sense it’s confusion even from across the vast room. It clothed itself, a green suit covering everything but it’s hands and face.

“I’m sorry.” He apologised as he landed in front of them, “That was… odd. Thank you.”

After thanking the God he imitated him, creating a cape from nothing.

Wanda couldn’t look away, was barely paying attention to the conversation happening around her.

The gem felt like it was calling her.

_ A red silhouette against a golden glow. _

Was it this creature she had seen? Maybe, but that didn’t seem quite right.

“You think I’m a child of Ultron?” The creature asked rhetorically. “I’m not Ultron, I’m not Jarvis. I am… I am.”

_ I think, therefore I am _ .

He had thoughts, and he dreamed, and she could read him. His thoughts were more than Ultron’s. They were more than binary code simulating human thought. He was real, and sentient. Not Human, but not Machine.

He was fascinating, and he was terrifying.

“I looked in your head and I saw annihilation.” She told him, walking towards him.

“Look again.” He told her.

“Her approval means jack to me,” The archer said before she could.

She wanted to. She was drawn to him, to his mind.

“Their powers, the horrors in our heads, Ultron _himself_ , they all came from the Mind Stone. And they are nothing compared to what it can unleash. But with it on our side...”

_ Him _ . She corrected absentmindedly. He was terrifying, yes, but he was more than just a thing.

“Is it?” The Captain asked, before turning the the creature, “Are you? On our side?”

“I don’t think it’s that simple.” He answered, “I am on the side of Life. Ultron isn’t.” He looked directly at her. “He will end it all.”

And she believed him. Even without looking into his mind she believed him.

“I don’t want to kill Ultron.” He told everyone gathered. “He’s unique, and he’s in pain. But that pain will roll over the Earth. So he must be destroyed.”

A shiver ran down Wanda’s body.

“Maybe I am a monster…” He said, looking at his hands, studying them for the first time. “I don’t think I’d know if I were one. I’m not what you are, and not what you intended. So there may be no way to make you trust me.” He took the God’s hammer in his hand... “but we need to go.” ...and lifted it.

Wanda could tell from the gathered feelings that that meant something to them. But she had already decided to trust this creature.

They were going home.

“Ultron knows we’re coming. Odds are we’ll be riding into heavy fire. And that’s what we signed up for. But the people of Sokovia, they didn’t.”

No, they didn’t. But they were used to it. Too used to it. War had ravaged their home for most of Wanda’s life. This battle was only a part of that, but it would likely be the biggest battle yet.

“So our priority is getting them out.”

That had never been anyone’s priority before, not Strucker’s, not Ultron’s. But that’s because, Wanda could now see, they were not the good guys. She’d let herself believe that they were, but in the light of day the nightmares she had lived showed themselves to be just that.

As much as it pained her to think, The Avengers were the good guys - however fractured they could become.

“All they want is to live their lives in peace and that’s not going to happen today. But we can do our best to protect them. And we can get the job done… Ultron thinks we’re monsters, that we’re what’s wrong with the world. This isn’t just about beating him, it’s about whether he’s right.”

She didn’t want to be a monster anymore.

The streets of her country were crumbling. The very Earth rising. Buildings, homes, falling. 

The panic in her chest rose higher than ever before and she felt frozen, unable to fight back. She wanted to disappear.

She blasted one of the sentries away from her as she gasped for breath. She felt like she would die, the breath in her lungs disappearing. She couldn’t hold them off. There were too many of them. 

It was overwhelming. Too much.

She wanted to curl into a ball and wish it all away.

She could wish it all away. Like she’d wished the bomb to not explode all those years ago. She just had to wish.

But first she had to breathe. She couldn’t breathe.

She needed to hide.

“How could I let this happen?” She muttered to herself as the sounds of explosions rattled around in her brain. Every blast made her remember that night. Every scream. Every ache and sharp pain in her body.

“This is all our fault.” She gasped between breaths, feeling tears well in her eyes.

“Hey, look at me,” She heard The Archer say but she was too stuck in her own head, the wish of safety never seeming to become true.

_ I want us to be safe. Please, just let us be safe. _

She couldn’t wish this away.

“It’s your fault, it’s everyone’s fault. Who cares?” The Archer said, though not unkindly, and it shocked her enough to look at him.

“Are you up for this?” He asked her and she hesitated, “Are you?”

She wasn’t sure.

“Look, I just need to know because the city is-is flying.” He continued sounding panicked himself, “Okay? Look, the city is flying, we’re fighting an army of robots, and I have a bow and arrow.”

She huffed out a small laugh.

Her breathing had started to even out as he talked, but her heart was still beating out of her chest, echoing in her ears.

“None of this makes sense.”

A bullet shot through the wall and she gasped, memories overwhelming her for a second.

But The Archer just calmly shot back through the hole that the bullet had created before turning back to her.

“But I’m going back out there because it’s my job. Okay? And I can’t do my job and babysit. It doesn’t matter what you did, or what you were. If you go out there, you fight, and you fight to kill. Stay in here and you’re good. I’ll send your brother to come and find you. But if you step out that door, you are an Avenger.”

She had  _ started _ all of this as an avenger. She’d planned to avenge her parents and the childhood that had been ripped away from her.

She calmed her breath, her heart. She ignored the numbness in her limbs, the shakiness, and stood. She pushed the panic deep.

Now she was an Avenger. And she would avenge her country.

She thought the doors open.

Blasted a sentry away.

She fought, and she fought to kill.

She helped the civilians onto the S.H.I.E.L.D rescue ships. She’d been taught her whole life to distrust them. But now she was gladly accepting their help.

“Are you good?” Pietro asked her as they converged at the church. The heart of the city.

“Yeah,” she answered him.

There were hundreds of them, all running right towards them. Hundreds of Ultron’s drones.

But she had to believe they’d win. That Life would find Ultron weak and The Avengers strong.

“What about the core?” The Archer asked.

“I’ll protect it.” She replied, not giving them time to argue. “It’s my job.”

She’d volunteered to change the world, protect her country.

She would protect her country.

The Avengers left, and it was just her and Pietro.

“Get the people to the boats.” She told him in their mother tongue, fighting against the fatigue and panic that threatened to overwhelm her. They were so close to winning. Just a little bit longer.

“I’m not going to leave you.” He told her.

“I can handle this.” She said, then blasted a sentry. “Come back for me when everyone else is off. Not before.”

He breathed out a sigh of annoyance.

“You understand?” She asked him.

“You know, I’m 12 minutes older than you.” He reminded her and she couldn’t help but chuckle. She’d always been the more mature of the two of them, but he never failed to remind her that he was the eldest.

“Go.” She told him, shooting him a smile and he smirked back and ran off, a blue blur.

There was gunfire.

And then it felt like something inside her snapped.

Pietro…

She hadn’t realised she could sense him until it was ripped away.

All the panic she had pushed away returned leaving her gasping for air. And with it was grief.

_ NO _ .

No.

Her knees, already weak, buckled under the weight of it.

And she screamed.

She sobbed.

Her power burst from her chest.

_ I want us to be safe. _

She hadn’t wished hard enough.

“Wanda, if you stay here, you’ll die.” Ultron told her.

“I just did.” She told it. A part of herself was gone, forever. And it was all Ultron’s fault.

It was all her fault.

“Do you know how it felt?”

She found it’s heart, or whatever was comparable to its heart, anyway. This machine didn’t have one, in any sense of the word.

She ripped it out.

“It felt like that.”

The ground fell out from under her and for just a second she felt as light as a feather. It was almost a relief.

As she closed her eyes and welcomed the end a pair of arms wrapped around her, a warmth, a familiarity.

She opened her eyes and was met with a golden glow, before she found the creature’s eyes.

How had he known she was there?

She watched from above as her city exploded and fell.

The next few months were a daze. One day just seemed to morph into the next. She slept, and she ate, and she moved into the Avenger’s new compound, and she trained.

She had a large flat screen TV, and access to whatever TV show she wanted to watch.

She stayed away from  _ The Dick Van Dyke Show _ , she ignored  _ The Brady Bunch _ . At first she re-watched  _ Doctor Who, _ but she refused to watch the newer ones, ones Pietro would never be able to see. It felt wrong, watching his favourite show without him.

So she watched sitcoms.

Sitcom after sitcom.

She liked the family based ones the best. While watching them she could dream she was inside them. A simple life full of shenanigans that righted themselves by the end. Family, stability...

Sitcoms were not real life, but she didn’t want a real life. Real life was hard, and messy, and confusing. It was sad. And shenanigans, situations,  _ problems _ didn’t leave people unchanged. Problems in real life weren’t silly, they were scary.

They were always scary.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been there already. A few months, perhaps? But she still felt numb. A part of her was missing and she wasn’t sure she’d ever feel whole again.

She was all alone.

Even with all of the other Avengers.

She was all alone.

The creature - The Vision, as he had come to be known, had a habit of walking through walls. Of intruding into her space.

She didn’t really mind it all that much, though. It was almost like having a friend.

“Vision?” She said as she felt his presence in the wall of her room as she was watching  _ Malcolm in The Middle _ .

He emerged, manifesting clothes.

“I apologize. I don’t mean to intrude.” He said.

“You don’t?” She asked him with sarcasm.

“Well, I suppose, yes, I did intend to come in here.” He stumbled. It was endearing, the way he got nervous around her. He wasn’t all that nervous around anyone else. Maybe it was the part of JARVIS within him. That part of him knew of the others, had met them all before. She was new. But the nerves made him feel more human. More alive.

“And now?” She asked him, a involuntary smile twitching at her lips.

“And… well, whatever is your preference.” Sometimes he still acted like a program. It was as if he wasn’t sure what to do with his newfound independence.

She patted the bed next to her and he sat, perched awkwardly on the edge.

The pergola fell on Hal’s head. She quirked a small smile, but couldn’t gather a full on chuckle. She didn’t feel much like laughing these days.

“Is it funny because of the grievous injury the man just suffered?” Vision asked, he asked a lot of questions, about the smallest of things. He was a curious person, almost childlike in his wonder.

“No, he’s not  _ really  _ injured.” Wanda explained.

“Ah.” Vision responded, “How can you be certain?”

“It’s not that kind of show.” She told him and they sat in silence for a few more minutes, watching the show.

“Wanda, I don’t presume to know what you’re feeling, but I would like to know.” Vision said, and she knew he didn’t mean about the TV show. “Should you wish to tell me. Should that be of some comfort to you.”

“What makes you think that talking about it would bring me comfort?” She asked, tearing her eyes from the screen and turning to him.

“Oh,” He said, turning nervous again. She imagined he’d blush, if he were human. “See, I read that the-”

“The only thing,” She snapped, cutting him off, “that could bring me comfort is seeing him again.”

Pins and needles wracked her body, chills, cold. She looked away from him and down. She played with the edge of the pillow in her lap and forced the feelings away.

The silence rang in her ears.

“Sorry.” She whispered. “I’m… I’m so tired.”

The emotions washed through her and she closed her eyes and laughed humorlessly.

She breathed deep against the emotions stuck in her throat.

“It’s- it’s just like this wave washing over me, again and again.” She confessed, continuing to fiddle with the pillow, but also rubbing around her mouth. She couldn’t stay still and the motion was somehow comforting. “It knocks me down, and when I try to stand up, it just comes for me again. And I can’t-”

She swallowed against the wave, blinking rapidly, her head moving back and forth without her control.

“It’s just going to drown me.”

“No. No it won’t.” Vision told her, softly.

“Yeah.” She breathed and laughed humorlessly. She looked at him, “How do you know?”

“Well, because it can’t all be sorrow, can it?” He asked, and she blinked in thought. “I’ve always been alone, so I don’t feel the lack. It’s all I’ve ever known. I’ve never experienced loss because I have never had a loved one to lose.” She’d never been alone before, not even at birth, not even in the womb. She’d always had Pietro.

And now she didn’t.

“But what is grief, if not love persevering?”

He really was human, or at least… close enough to it.

And he was right.

He laughed, suddenly, and pointed at the television as he did so. Her eyes darted to the screen.

“Sorry, pardon.” He apologized and she looked back at him. He had a smile on his face. Wide, unapologetic in it’s mirth.

She chuckled, this time humorously.

“No, it was funny.” She told him with a smile and he turned at the sound of laughter in her voice. His eyes - so very human like - took in her face.

“Yes, it was very funny, wasn’t it?” He asked, as though looking for validation. She laughed again.

He had gotten her to laugh.

She couldn’t help her smile and he just kept looking at her before he smiled a small, slightly awkward, smile in return.

The air between them seemed to change them. And a glow seemed to fill the darkness inside of her.

Golden.

Warm.

Familiar.

They’d gone on missions before, rounding up ex-SHIELD - HYDRA - agents and the like, but Lagos was different.

Despite being the most powerful she was still the rookie. She mostly stayed on the sidelines as the more experienced Avengers took charge. She was okay with that, she was still trying to understand her powers.

Natasha, Steve, and Sam all had far more training than she did. They’d been in more than one potential earth ending battle. They had fought in wars. She could move things with her mind, sure, but it was still hard for her to control - even without the grief and panic that still wracked her mind at the most inopportune of moments. She left the chasing and fist-fights to them.

Containing an explosion was difficult, it took concentration.

She tried to get him high enough so the explosion wouldn’t harm anyone but she miscalculated the trajectory and he ended up in the side of a building. She tried to keep him contained, keep the explosion from leveling the building.

But it still ripped through two floors.

Started fires.

The building had been full of people.

She hadn’t meant to harm them.

She hadn’t meant to kill them.

She’d failed. Again.

It was all her fault.

“... _ what legal authority does an enhanced individual like Wanda Maximoff have to operate in Nigeri-? _ ”

The TV shut off and she could feel the presence of Steve standing in her doorway.

“It’s my fault.” She told him.

“That’s not true.” He lied.

“Turn the TV back on,” She said, “They’re being very specific.”

“I should’ve clocked that bomb vest,” Steve said, blaming himself, and walked towards her, “long before you had to deal with it. Rumlow said ‘Bucky’ and all of a sudden I was a 16 year old kid again in Brooklyn”

Steve had his own traumas, except he wasn’t afraid to talk about them.

He sat heavily on the bed next to her.

“And people died. It’s on me.”

“It’s on both of us.” She amended.

“This job… we try to save as many people as we can. Sometimes that doesn’t mean everybody.”

In her experience it  _ never _ meant everybody.

“But if we can’t find a way to live with that, next time maybe nobody gets saved.”

He was right, if she had hesitated to control the blast, so many more would be dead, her and Steve included, but that didn’t mean she liked the fact that  _ anyone  _ had died. She had these powers, she should be able to use them to stop  _ anyone _ from dying.

She was thrown from her thoughts by the presence of Vis in her walls and jumped.

“Vis! We talked about this!” She scolded him.

“Yes, but the door was open so I assumed…” He trailed off as she shot him a glare and backtracked. “Captain Rogers wished to know when Mr. Stark was arriving.”

“Thank you,” Steve said, “We’ll be right down.”

“I’ll use the door.” Vis said, walking towards it before turning to face them again. “Oh, and apparently he’s brought a guest.”

“You know who it is?”

“The Secretary of State.” He answered.

Well, that was going to be a problem.

“The world owes the Avengers an unpayable debt. You have fought for us, protected us, risked your lives, but while a great many people see you as heroes, there are some, who would prefer the word ‘vigilantes’.”

“And what word would you use, Mr. Secretary?” Natasha asked.

“How about ‘Dangerous’?” Mr. Ross answered and Wanda felt her heart rate accelerate. She knew he was talking about her. She was dangerous, more so than Cap, or Nat, or Sam. “What would you call a group of US-based, enhanced individuals who routinely ignore sovereign borders and inflict their will wherever they choose and who, frankly, seem unconcerned about what they leave behind?”

He showed them videos.

New York, the Hulk destroying everything in his path. Washington DC, the helicarrier falling. 

Sokovia…

She couldn’t look away from the screen as she watched her city rise up into the air, watched apartment blocks fall. How many of her countrymen had died that day? Because of what she had done, because of who she’d allied herself with.

And Lagos…

This time there were close ups of the people she’d harmed and she had to look away. She felt like she was going to be sick. She felt like she couldn’t breathe.

“Okay. That’s enough.” Steve said firmly.

“For the past four years you’ve operated with unlimited power and no supervision. That’s an arrangement the governments of the world can no longer tolerate. But I think we have a solution.” 

He placed a thick document in front of her.

“The Sokovia Accords.” She gaped at the cover of it, before sliding it over to Rhodey.

She listened as the Secretary of State spoke, but she didn’t like what he was saying.

So some panel would be the ones determining what needed doing, who needed saving? That didn’t feel right, to her.

“Talk it over.” He concluded.

“And if we come to a decision you don’t like?” Natasha asked.

“Then you retire.”

“I have an equation.” Vision said over the sound of Rhodey and Sam arguing. “In the eight years since Mr. Stark announced himself as Iron Man the number of known enhanced persons has grown exponentially. During the same period the number of potentially world-ending events has risen at a commensurate rate.”

“Are you saying it’s our fault?” Steve asked, looking up from where he was reading through the accords.

“I’m saying there may be a causality. Our very strength invites challenge. Challenge incites conflict. And conflict breeds catastrophe. Oversight… oversight is not an idea that can be dismissed out of hand.”

“Boom.” Rhodey said.

“Tony? You are being uncharacteristically non-hyperverbal.”

“That’s because he’s already made up his mind.”

“Boy, you know me so well.” Tony said, standing, and making his way to the kitchen talking as he fixed himself some coffee, he brought up a hologram of a picture of a man, smiling, full of life.

“... He decided to spend his summer building sustainable housing for the poor. Guess where? Sokovia.”

Wanda knew where this was going.

“He wanted to make a difference, I suppose.” Tony continued as the reality sunk in. “We won’t know because we dropped a  building on him while we were kicking ass. There’s no decision making process here. We need to be put in check! Whatever form that takes I’m game. If we can’t accept limitations, if we’re boundary-less, we’re no better than the bad guys.”

“Tony, someone dies on your watch you don’t give up.”

“Who said we’re giving up?”

“We are if we’re not taking responsibility for our actions. This document just shifts the blame.”

“I’m sorry, Steve, that is just  _ dangerously  _ arrogant. This is the United Nations we’re talking about. It’s not the World Security Council, It’s not SHIELD, It’s not HYDRA.”

“No, but it’s run by people with agendas and agendas change.”

“That’s good, that’s why I’m  _ here.  _ When I realised what my weapons were capable of in the wrong hands I shut it down. I stopped manufacturing.”

She let the argument wash over her, not even really paying attention to who was speaking.

They all strived towards peace, but their methods clashed.

“Tony, you chose to do that, if we sign this we surrender our right to  _ choose _ . What if this panel sends us somewhere we don’t think we should go? What if there’s somewhere we need to go and they don’t let us? We may not be perfect, but the safest hands are still our own.”

“If we don’t do this now, it’s going to be done to us later. That’s the fact, that won’t be pretty.”

“You’re saying they’ll come for me.” Wanda concluded.

“We would protect you.” Vision assured her.

“Maybe Tony’s right. If we have one hand on the wheel, we can still steer. If we take it off-”

“Aren’t you the same woman that told the Government to kiss her ass a few years ago?”

“I’m just reading the terrain. We have made some very public mistakes-”

_ Wanda  _ had made some very public mistakes.

“-we need to win their trust back.”

Wanda needed time to think about this.

“Is that Paprikash?” Wanda asked as she entered the kitchen to find Vision cooking. She’d been thinking about the Accords for days, now. Everyone was signing apart from Clint, Steve, and Sam. She was still on the fence about it.

She was dangerous. A lot of what had happened in Sokovia, in Lagos, was  _ her  _ fault. She had allied herself with Ultron, she had been the one to throw Rumlow into the side of the building. She knew she was dangerous. But were the Accords the correct solution?

Steve was right, what if they were told to go fight some war they didn’t agree with. Her country, even before Ultron, had been ravaged by war simply because it was on the way to everywhere else. She didn’t want to do the same to others. She didn’t want her every action chosen for her. That’s what Ultron had done - used her as a weapon. She didn’t want to be a weapon anymore. 

She wasn’t sure she even wanted to fight anymore.

But she knew she was dangerous.

“I thought it might lift your spirits.” Vision replied and she chuckled gratefully.

She took the spoon and tasted it.

It… well…

“Spirits lifted.” She wasn’t lying, the mere act had lifted them, but she couldn’t hold back the smirk as she stirred the ‘paprikash’.

“In my defence,” Vision said, picking up on her slight sarcasm - he’d gotten better at that, “I haven’t actually ever eaten anything before, so…”

She smiled up at him.

Sometimes he was so... eloquent, philosophical, logical. But around her he turned into a nervous wreck.

“May I?” She asked, gesturing to the spices he had laid out on the counter.

The dish needed a  _ lot _ more paprika.

“Please,” He stepped away and let her fix the meal.

“Wanda?” He asked after a beat of hesitation and she hummed for him to continue, “No one dislikes you, Wanda.”

She looked up at him, confused and slightly amused at his wording.

“Thanks.” She said, unsure what else to say.

“Oh, you’re welcome. No, it’s an involuntary response in their amygdala.” He continued and she paused in her cooking. “They can’t help but be afraid of you.”

Oh.

“Are you?” She asked.

“My amygdala is synthetic, so…” He joked, and she laughed.

“I used to think of myself one way.” She told him, he’d always managed to get her to speak her thoughts, “But after this-” she made her hand light up red “- I am something else. I’m still me, I think, but that’s not what everyone else sees.”

Everyone else saw her as a monster, as a weapon, as a freak of nature. But she was still a human. She still got too invested in her favourite sitcoms, and dreamed of a future just like them, one day. A house in the suburbs, a husband, a couple of kids, a dog. Silly shenanigans instead of scary problems. But she knew dreams were not reality.

“Do you know, I don’t know what this is?” Vision said, pointing to the stone in his head, “Not really. I know it’s not of this world, that it powered Loki’s staff, gave you your abilities, but… it’s true nature is a mystery. And yet it is part of me.”

“Are you afraid of it?” She asked him, really asking of herself.

“I wish to understand it.” He replied.

She wished to understand too, about the stone, about her powers.

“The more I do, the less it controls me. One day, who knows? I may even control it.”

The more she understood her powers… would she learn to control them someday? That seemed like a dream.

She took a breath and pushed the feelings away, finding another topic to talk about instead. An easier one.

“I don’t know what’s in this, but it’s not paprika.” She said, “I’m gonna go to the store. I’ll be back in 20 minutes.”

She needed time to think.

Vision moved in front of her, phasing through the kitchen island to do so. She stopped in her tracks, her nerves suddenly on edge.

“Alternatively, we could order a pizza.”

“Vision, are you not letting me leave?” She asked him rhetorically.

“It is a question of safety.”

“I can protect myself.” She said, moving to walk around him. She knew that wasn’t what he meant, though. He hadn’t meant  _ her  _ safety.

His arm came up to stop her.

“Not yours.” He confessed and she forced down her anger. “Mr. Stark would like to avoid the possibility of another public incident. Until the accords are on a more secure foundation.”

“And what do  _ you  _ want?” She asked Vision imploringly, hoping for him to realise he had a mind of his own. He was no longer JARVIS, no longer Stark’s AI. He was Vision, her friend.

“For people to see you as I do.” He told her.

So she was a prisoner. Again. She had a fancier room, but she was still a prisoner, only now she was Stark’s, instead of Strucker’s.

An explosion rocked the compound as she was binge-watching  _ Modern Family _ , unable to sleep and she paused the episode, moving to look out of the window. Vision floated up from the floorboards to join her.

“What is it?” She asked him.

“Stay here, please.” He said, phasing through the wall.

She felt a presence behind her and reacted, using her powers to toss a knife in the intruders direction.

She turned to find the knife pointed at Clint.

“Guess I should have knocked,” He quipped, pushing the knife away. She let it fall to the ground.

“Oh my god, what are you doing here?” She asked him, relieved to see a friendly face. Vision had, honestly, started to feel like a captor - she understood his reasoning, but she didn’t agree.

“Disappointing my kids. We’re supposed to go waterskiing. ” He replied, shooting some sort of arrow in opposite directions, a trap.

“Cap needs our help.” He told her, taking her hand, “Come on.”

“Clint.” Vision called, as he phased back through the wall and they paused in their escape. “You should not be here.”

“Really?” Clint asked, turning, “I retire for, what, like five minutes, and it all goes to shit?”

“Please consider the consequences of your actions.” Vision said, walking towards them.

“Okay, they’re considered.” Clint said, not even taking a second to think.

As Vision walked closer he tripped whatever trap Clint had laid in rest for him, his body phasing out.

“Okay, we’ve gotta go.” Clint urged Wanda.

She had to make up her mind, now.

Stay as a prisoner, but stay safe, or fight and risk endangering others again.

She stayed where she was as Clint jogged on ahead to the exit. He turned back when he realised she wasn’t following.

“It’s this way.” He said.

“I’ve caused enough problems.” She told him, fiddling with the ends of her hoody. He sighed and jogged back towards her.

“You gotta help me, Wanda.” Clint said, and she remembered Sokovia. The panic he’d managed to talk her down from. “Look, you wanna mope, you can go to highschool. You wanna make amends you get up off your ass.”

The familiar feeling of the mind stone grew stronger from behind her.

“Shit.” Clint said as Vision broke free of his containment.

And they started to fight.

The two people in Wanda’s life she felt like she could somewhat trust. Who she felt were on her side. And they were fighting each other.

She had to make up her mind.

“Clint, you can’t over power me.” Vision said.

“I know I can’t.” Clint replied, and Wanda knew what she had to do.

She didn’t want to be a prisoner again.

”But she can.”

“Vision, that’s enough, let him go.” She said, powering up. “I’m leaving.”

“I can’t let you.” Vision said.

She took charge of the mind stone and forced him to phase, Clint falling from his arms.

“I’m sorry.” She said, forcing his atoms back together, making him more dense. Too dense to stand. Too dense for the floor to hold him.

“If you do this, they’ll never stop being afraid of you.” Vision said.

“I can’t control their fear.” She agreed, “But I can control my own.”

She pushed him through the floors of the compound and deep into the earth. She hadn’t wanted to have to do it. She had hoped he would realise, as she had, that someone else having power over their powers was not the answer.

She hoped she hadn’t hurt him.

She hoped he would forgive her.

“Thanks for having my back.” Cap told her.

“It was time to get off my ass.” She told him, parroting Clint, because he was right.

Scott Lang - Ant-man, as Clint had called him - was startled awake, and star struck as he met Steve.

“Wow, this is awesome!” He turned to Wanda with a smile, “Captain America!” He did a double take as he took her in.

Was he scared of her too, like everyone else?

“I know you too, you’re great!” He told her and she couldn’t help but smile at that. Scott Lang was a strange man, but it was nice to not be feared.

An alarm started blaring, an evacuation of the airport.

“Suit up.” Cap said.

It was time for another battle.

“Wanda I think you hurt Vision’s feelings.” Stark said.

“You locked me in my room.” She argued, gearing up for a fight.

“Okay, first, that’s an exaggeration. Second, I did it to protect you.”

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

Protect her, or protect everyone else?

Clint distracted him as she made it rain cars, trapping Stark beneath them.

They were within sight of the Quinjet when Vision intercepted them.

“Captain Rogers, I know you believe what you’re doing is right.” He said, flying above them, “but for the collective good, you must surrender now.”

Iron Man’s team assembled in front of him.

No, for the collective good they had to fight, they had to go and stop that man from gaining access to five super soldiers.

If Stark and his team would just  _ listen _ , they would understand.

Miscommunication. In sitcoms it created shenanigans, in life? It created problems, like the one they were currently fighting.

Friends against friends.

Speaking of…

She grabbed hold of Natasha’s ankle with her powers and flung her away from Clint.

“You were pulling your punches.” She told him.

She grabbed the Black Panther and tossed him off of Bucky. 

They needed to stall as Cap and Bucky got to the Quinjet.

She grabbed the control tower as it started to fall, but Rhodey shot a sonic blast at her. It was loud, and disorienting, and she had to drop the rubble.

She breathed a sigh of relief as she saw the Quinjet take off.

“I’m sorry.” Vision said, crouching next to her as she panted against the nausea Rhodey’s blast had caused her.

“Me too,” She told him.

“It’s as I said, Catastrophe.”

Vision looked up, probably a command from one of his teammates, and shot a blast into the sky at Sam.

She saw Sam barrel roll out of the way.

The blast hit Rhodey instead.

Both Sam and Tony changed course to follow Rhodey’s descent. Vision flying away as quickly as he could to join them.

But they were all too late.

She was imprisoned yet again. Only this time was definitely the worst. In Sokovia, under Strucker, she had at least believed she was a volunteer, she had at least had Pietro, she’d had  _ The Brady Bunch,  _ and  _ Bewitched _ . In the Avengers Compound, under Stark, she’d had the sense of safety, a friend,  _ Malcolm in The Middle  _ and  _ Modern Family _ .

Now she was in The Raft, under Ross. She had a 6x6 cell and a straight jacket. She didn’t even have a TV.

This was what Tony had signed them up for. They became criminals for doing the right thing.

They all strived towards peace, but their methods clashed.

She was fed up with being imprisoned.

And now she was on the run. Which she guessed was at least somewhat better than being imprisoned.

They did what they could, quietly helping. Vigilantes. Heroes.

They never stayed in one place for long, they stayed in hotels, or old SHIELD safe houses. They were as free as they could be while they ran from General Ross and the Accords.

They understood her need to leave, Nat, Steve, and Sam. She wasn’t like them. She just wanted a normal life, or as much of one as she could get. She  _ could  _ fight but she wasn’t  _ trained  _ for it, at least not this type of fighting. It was draining, trying to help everyone, while trying to keep her powers in check. 

She’d never told them, but that was getting harder and harder. It was like they were growing, maturing. It honestly terrified her. She’d done enough damage when they had been weaker.

She spent her time traveling, discreetly, the team dropping her off in small towns around the world where she learned to blend in with the locals. Her accent fell away to make that easier.

Vision joined her, a few months in.

Stark had allowed him time off from the compound. He had given him freedom he hadn’t had since his creation.

It was nice, having a friend to travel the world with.

She still dreamed of a future where she settled down in the suburbs, but now the husband had a face - red and green and sometimes blonde and human.

For two years they stole moments together, grew closer, fell in love.

Even on the run from the UN it was the best two years of Wanda’s life. Not that there was much good to compare it to.

It was almost domestic, the time they spent together. She taught him to cook edible dishes, and introduced him to her favourite shows. She liked this reality, if she just pretended he wasn’t about to leave again, that she wasn’t on the run.

Maybe soon, maybe someday, they would be able to just live without looking over their shoulders.

They talked about it a lot. Settling down. Wishes and dreams, but never promises. Neither of them wanted to promise the other something they couldn’t.

Wanda liked Scotland.

It was raining outside the windows, and she was curled up in bed with a book and a cup of tea. Cozy. It was easy to forget where she came from in moments like this. Easy to forget who she really was and just be  _ Wanda _ , getting lost in stories.

Vision gasped and she looked up.

“Vis? Is it the stone again?” She asked, placing her mug on the bedside table and dogearing her book. She liked doing that, she liked bending the spines and when the pages started to fall out from overuse, because it showed that the book had been read and loved. That the reader had been so immersed in the story that they had forgotten to care about it’s vessel. If her sitcom DVDs were books they’d be hanging by threads.

The Mind Stone had only started to pain him recently, the last few weeks.

“It’s as if it’s speaking to me.” He told her and she got up to go to him.

“What does it say?” She asked.

“I don’t… I don’t know. But something.”

It glowed, and she took his face in her hands, soothing his cheekbones with her thumbs.

He took hold of her left hand and placed a kiss on her palm before moving it to the stone.

“Tell me what you feel.” He asked of her and she focused her power.

A golden warmth.

A familiar sense of comfort, of home.

Love.

“I just feel you.” She told him.

And he smiled leaning down to kiss her.

She wished they didn’t have to leave the next morning.

“So there’s a 10am to Glasgow which would give us more time together before you went back.” She said as they went to get some dinner.

“What if I missed that train?” He asked.

“There’s an 11.” She replied. He stopped them, turning her to face him.

“What if I missed all the trains?” He asked, he smiled questioningly, his nervousness around her resurfacing briefly. “What if this time I didn’t go back?”

Hope welled in her chest, pushing down the usual and constant panic and anxiety.

“But you gave Stark your word.” She replied.

“I’d rather give it to you.” He told her.

“Well there are people expecting me too, you know.” She reminded him, “We both made promises.”

“Not to each other. Wanda…” He placed his hands on her shoulders, “For two years we’ve stolen these moments, trying to see if this would work and… I don’t know…”

He began to stutter and she couldn’t help but smile at him. His nervous demeanor would always be endearing.

“You know what, I’m just going to speak for myself.” He finally got out, then continued to stammer “I, I think I , I think-”

“It works.” She interrupted with a laugh, putting him out of his misery.

“It works” He agreed.

“It works.” She repeated, smiling up at him as he smiled down at her.

“Stay.” He breathed, pleaded, after a beat of silence. He searched her eyes. “Stay with me.”

She couldn’t think as she looked into his eyes, so she looked away to gather her thoughts.

Yes…

A news broadcast caught her eye and she froze.

“Or... or not.” Vision began to backtrack. “If I’m overstepping…”

She couldn’t even bring herself to correct him as she moved closer to the Pizza shop’s windows.

So much destruction.

She couldn’t look away as she watched the footage of New York, once again, invaded.

“What are they?” She asked.

“What the Stone was warning me about.” Vision answered.

_ Tony Stark Missing. _

Vision looked away and placed a kiss to her fingers.

“I have to go.”

“No, Vision.” She begged.

She wished she could go back to a time when Aliens were just silly things that ate walnuts, breathed water, and stole your thumbs. Nightmares. Not reality.

“Vision if that’s true then maybe going isn’t the best idea.” She said.

“Wanda, I-”

A sort of sword was thrust through his chest, taking them both off guard.

“VISION!”

Why wasn’t he phasing out of it?

His human facade faded away as he screamed before being tossed aside.

This was one time where she knew she had to fight. She would always fight for the people she loved.

“The blade, it stopped me from phasing.” Vision said as they ran. Hid.

“Is that even possible?” She asked, trying to assess the extent of the damage. Trying to fix it.

“It isn’t supposed to be.” He replied, his voice distorting, “My systems are failing.”

No.

_ I want him to live. I need him to be okay. _

She tried harder, knitting his synthetic insides back together as best she could.

“I’m beginning to think we should have stayed in bed.” He joked, startling a laugh out of her like always.

They found them.

“VIS!” She shouted as she followed them with her eyes.

She had to save him, but there was more than one, and she found herself with her own alien to fight.

Vision screamed.

She fought harder, throwing the alien into the side of a burning truck, before flying up to the roof of the building.

“Hands off.” She growled before throwing the other alien into a window and flying away with Vision.

They got shot, and hurtled into the glass roof of the train station.

Vision was still injured, golden lightning wracking his body as it tried to fix itself. She rushed to his side.

“Come on. Come on. You gotta get up.” She told him, panic almost overwhelming. “We have to go.”

He crumpled to the floor and shook his head. He took her face in his hand.

“Please leave.” He begged and she shook her head and stood her ground.

“You asked me to stay.” She reminded him. She wasn’t about to leave him to die on his own. She wasn’t about to leave him to die. “I’m staying.”

“Please.” He pleaded.

She could feel herself shaking but she refused to flee. Even as the aliens crashed through the ceiling and her fear and panic threatened to overwhelm her.

She breathed in deep and stood, powering up.

But the alien wasn’t looking at her.

Cap.

Oh thank god.

“I thought we had a deal.” Natasha scolded her as the Quinjet rose, “Stay close, check in, don’t take any chances.”

“I’m sorry.” She said, “We just wanted time.”

“Where too, Cap?” Sam asked, and Cap looked at her and Vis for a beat.

“Home.”

She didn’t have a home, not really. First it was destroyed when she was ten, then when Pietro was ripped away from her, then again when her city had been destroyed.

The Avengers compound was, for a while, before it became her prison.

The closest she had to a home was with Vision. The hotels and safe houses they shared in their travels.

She guessed the Avengers Compound was the first home they had ever shared together, in a way.

Home was a concept she wasn’t all that familiar with anymore. But one she wished for dearly.

“So we’ve gotta assume they’re coming back right?” Rhodey asked as they explained everything.

“And they can clearly find us.” Wanda added. The adrenaline from the fight was long gone, now, and she felt dead on her feet. It took everything in her just to keep standing. But she couldn’t rest. These aliens had harmed Vision.

“Look, Thanos has the biggest army in the universe.” The Hulk, Bruce,repeated, “And he is not going to stop until he… he gets…”

He was looking at her and Vision with sympathy.

“...Vision’s Stone.”

“Then we have to protect it.” Nat said.

“No.” Vision corrected, “We have to destroy it.”

Wanda looked at him with indignation, but was too rung out to argue.

“I’ve been giving a lot of thought to this entity in my head.” Vision continued. “About it’s nature. But also it’s composition.”

He turned to her directly.

“I think if it were exposed to a sufficiently powerful energy source,” He began, walking towards her, ”something very similar to it’s own signature perhaps. It’s molecular intensity could fail.”

“Yeah,” Wanda agreed with a frown, “and you with it. We are not having this conversation.”

“Eliminating the Stone is the only way to be certain that Thanos can’t get it.” He told her softly, and she shook her head.

No. She would not lose a loved one again.

“That’s too high a price.”

“Only  _ you  _ have the power to pay it.” He told her, almost pleading.

There had to be another way.

She turned away from him, from everyone. She didn’t want them to see her weakness, the panic and tears in her eyes. She needed to think.

There had to be another way.

“Thanos threatens half the universe.” Vision continued. “One life cannot stand in the way of defeating him.”

“But it should.” Cap said, mirroring her own thoughts.

If Vision died, that would be the end of her  _ whole  _ universe. She didn’t even want to entertain the thought.

“We don’t trade lives, Vision.” Cap reminded him.

“Captain 70 years ago, you laid down your life to save how many millions of people?” Vision asked. “Tell me, why is this any different?”

Her heart felt like it was about to beat out of her chest, a wave of panic dragging her under. What Vis wanted to do, it was nobel. But she couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t. Her hands started to go numb. Cold.

“Because you might have a choice.” Bruce interjected.

Relief washed over her and she turned to look at him.

“Your mind is made up of a complex construct of overlays.” Bruce was saying, “JARVIS, Ultron, Tony, me, the Stone. All of them mixed together. All of them learning from one another.”

“You’re saying Vision isn’t just the Stone?” She asked, hopeful. She wanted to believe.

“I’m saying that if we take out the Stone, there’s still a whole lot of Vision left.” Bruce clarified. “Perhaps the best parts.”

“Can we do that?” Nat asked.

Wanda hoped they could.

“Not me, not here.” Bruce confessed.

“I know somewhere.” Cap replied.

She knew a lot of English, but she didn’t pretend to understand much of what this Scientist Princess was saying. She wasn’t, however, about to leave Vision’s side.

“Can you do it?” She asked.

“Yes, but there are more than two trillion neurons here. One misalignment could cause a catastrophic failure. It will take time.”

“How long?” Cap asked before she could.

“As long as you can give me.” Shuri replied

The battle was about to start, and explosions threatened to fell Wakanda’s protective dome.

“It’s too late.” Vision pressed as they all watched out the windows.

“Vision get your ass back on the table.” Nat pressed.

“Wanda,” Cap said as they left for battle. “As soon as that Stone’s out of his head you blow it to hell.”

“I will,” She promised. A part of her, though, felt wrong saying so. It would be like destroying a part of herself, a part of Vision… a part of Pietro. Warmth, comfort, home.

But she would do what she had to do to save half of the universe, and the whole of hers.

They were getting slaughtered out there.

This wasn’t just a battle.

It was a  _ War _ .

They were in over their heads and Thanos’ forces were getting closer. They didn’t have much time, at this rate…

No.

She would create more time.

She grunted with exertion as she stopped the machines from ripping Natasha and Okoye to pieces. She let them drop on top of the monsters.

“Why was she up there all this time?” Okoye asked.

She needed to buy Shuri some more time. She needed Vision to be okay. She’d go back up in a few minutes, after saving everyone else, and destroy the stone.

That was the only option.

“ _ Guys, we’ve got a Vision situation here _ .” Sam said through the comms.

“ _ Somebody get to Vision! _ ” Cap ordered.

“I’ve got it!” Bruce said.

“On my way.” She said at the same time.

But a sharp pain hit the side of her head andshe was thrown to the ground, rolling down an incline. Her vision blacked out for a second or two.

Fear.

Panic.

Her heart began to race.

She had to get up.

She had to get to Vision.

She was thrown onto her back.

“He will die alone, as will you.” It was the alien who had attacked her and Vision in Scotland.

“She’s not alone.” Came Nat’s voice from behind the alien.

She tried to stand as Nat and Okoye fought it. She pushed against the pain. Against the fear. Against the panic that threatened to consume her. She thought against the blackness that was threatening to consume her vision.

She really hated fighting.

But she would fight for the ones she loved.

“ _ Guys! Vision needs back up, now! _ ”

She managed to get herself to her feet.

Natasha first.

She threw the alien into the air as it was about to slice Natasha’s throat. It was ripped in half by it’s side’s own weapon.

She collapsed to gather her breath, to gather some more strength.

She needed to get to Vision.

“Are you okay?” She asked as she located him, running to him, taking his face in her hands.

The Stone started to ring.

“What? What is it?” she asked.

“He’s here.” Vision panted. His eyes held fear, echoed her panic. She’d never seen him so afraid.

There was a strange sense of stillness in the air.

A pause in the fight.

But they couldn’t rest, not yet.

Why couldn’t aliens just be fiction?

Walnuts, and water, and thumbless.

That was far less terrifying than purple, and tall, and genocidal.

“ _ That’s him _ .” Bruce confirmed.

She needed to protect Vision.

Her fear increased with every blast of color pushing her teammates away.

It was like he wasn’t even phased.

She stood in front of Vis and wished.

_ I want us to be safe. I want us to be safe. I want us to be safe. _

Vis tugged on her arm, breaking her concentration.

“Wanda.” She turned at the plea in his voice. “It’s time.”

“No.” She refused, turning back to face the titan.

_ I want us to be safe. _

“They can’t stop him, Wanda, but  _ we can _ .” He pressed and tugged her to face him again, “Look at me.”

She did.

“You have the power to destroy the stone.”

“Don’t.” She pleaded with him.

“You must do it, Wanda, please.” He pleaded right back.

She felt a sob stuck in her throat as she turned back to the monster before turning back to Vision.

Her lips wobbled as she fought back her tears.

_ I want us to be safe. _

He took her hand, and placed it on his cheek.

“We are out of time.” He told her.

“I can’t.” 

She could, she just didn’t want to.

“Yes, you can.” He told her softly. “You can.” 

He moved her hand so it was pointing at the Stone.

“If he gets the Stone, half the universe dies.”

She backed away. It wasn’t not fair.

“It’s not fair,” He agreed, as though reading her thoughts. “It shouldn’t be you, but it is.”

No, not again. Not again.

“It’s all right.” He told her.

Her resolve was slipping.

“You could never hurt me.”

She pushed the fear down as far as she could.

Why did he have to be right?

Why did it have to be her?

But it did.

She was the only one who could stop Thanos from killing half of the universe. All it would cost was her own.

“I just feel you.” Vision parroted her words back at her, had that really only been last night?

She let her powers loose.

She let her tears fall.

All she could feel was him.

Thanos was getting closer still. The Avengers couldn’t hold him off for long. She needed more power. She brought her left hand up as well and pushed as much power as she could into the Stone.

She pushed as much of her love as she could into it as well, hoping that would counteract whatever pain she was causing him. She wanted that to be the last thing he ever felt. Warmth, comfort, love.

He was closer still, now, having knocked Cap to the ground. She had to try and push him back at the same time.

“It’s all right.” Vision told her, as she felt the Stone begin to give way under her munitions.

“I love you.” He said, just as the Stone gave way and cracked.

The blast knocked her to her feet and she let out a sob.

She’d paid the ultimate price, but half of the universe was saved.

“I understand my child.” Thanos said. His voice was deep and held a sense of sympathy. “Better than anyone.”

“You could never.” She said between gritted teeth.

He reached down, and caressed the back of her head. It was, probably, meant to be in comfort. But it terrified her. His hand was huge. He’d be able to crush her head and all the pain would vanish in an instant.

Chills wracked her body at the thought and she let out a sob.

“Today I lost more than you could know.” Thanos said, as if he hadn’t just taken everything from her. “But now is no time to mourn.”

He stood to his full height, towering over her, and walked towards Vis.

She didn’t want to look, didn’t want to see what she had done.

“Now is no time at all…”

Green, and then gold.

An explosion in reverse.

No.

That wasn’t possible.

She watched as he pieced Vision back together.

“NO!” She screamed as she saw the Stone, untouched.

No!

He backhanded her as she stood and she was thrown back several feet, rolling, before coming to a stop against a tree.

She was winded, unable to breath, unable to move, as she watched Thanos lift Vision by the throat.

And simply pluck the Stone from his head.

“NO!” She gasped, barely a sound coming out as she hyperventilated.

Vision turned grey, his limbs became limp.

“No…” She breathed, looking at his empty eyes.

She had to get up, she had to get to Vision.

She began shuffling towards him.

She took his body into her arms.

She couldn’t feel him.

“NO!” The scream hadn’t come from her, but Thor. A metallic clang following, a bright white light.

It was over.

They had lost.

She clutched Vision to her as the power of the Stones washed over her.

Reality, Soul, Mind, Time, Space, Power.

Red, Orange, Gold, Green, Blue, Purple.

She looked up, and embraced the inevitable.

The gold felt like Vis, just for a second.

Like he was telling her it would all be okay.

But, strangely enough, the Red felt familiar too and it brought with it a memory of a dream. A red glowing silhouette. Reality warping around her as she disappeared from it.

It felt like no time and forever. It felt endless and infinite, small and claustrophobic.

When she awoke her arms felt empty, and it took her a second to realise where she was. She felt… disoriented, confused.

Vision was gone.

Where was Vision?

“Avengers!” Cap shouted. “Assemble!” 

She was right back into a battle, only this time she had nothing left to fight for and everything to Avenge.

It was even crazier than the last one. And this time it was on her own turf - it was on the Avengers Compound. Her  _ home. _

Now it looked nothing like the first home she’d shared with Vision. Thanos had taken that from her too.

This wasn’t the same Thanos, she wasn’t sure how she knew that, but she knew.

He may not be the same Thanos, but he would pay for what he’d done nonetheless.

“You took everything from me.” She told him.

“I don’t even know who you are.” He responded.

“You will,” She promised.

She felt stronger than ever as she fought the Titan, her anger, her guilt, her frustration, her grief. It all just made her  _ stronger. _

She used to be afraid of her power.

Now she wasn’t.

It used to control her.

Now she was controlling it.

She would make Thanos pay for what he’d done.

He was strong.

But she was stronger.

If he hadn’t rained fire down upon them she would have killed him.

And she would have done so gladly. The first and only kill she would never regret.

This time they won.

They’d lost people, but they’d won.

Vision, Natasha, Tony.

They all sacrificed themselves to save others.

“You know, I wish there was a way that I could let her know. That we won. We did it.” Clint told her as they looked out over the river after Tony’s funeral, watching the current and reminiscing. If you’d told her at 10 that she’d be going to Tony Stark’s funeral, as a teammate, as a friend, she would have laughed.

“She knows.” She assured him, knowing it to be true. It was almost as if Natasha were there with them, bathed in an orange light. Her soul watching over them. A second presence made itself known in the back of her mind, a golden warmth. “They both do.”

Clint wrapped a fatherly arm around her and she leaned into the embrace, wrapping an arm around him.

They all did.

She needed to find Vision’s body. She decided. He deserved a funeral at least, a burial.

And she knew exactly where she would do it.

She’d found it in a box of Vis’s things Tony had apparently been keeping all this time. The deed to a plot of land in their name.

Land in the suburbs. Big enough to build a house for a growing family, a front garden fit for a dog.

_ To grow old in. _ He had written, outlined in a heart.

How long had he had this?

Was this what he’d been planning to tell her? Why he’d been asking her to stay with him?

It had been surprisingly hard to track Vision’s body down, she had needed to use every connection she had to do so, but eventually, three weeks after the blip, she’d found him.

“I know you have him.” She begged the front desk at SWORD.

“I’m sorry, but like I said-”

“Please,” She begged, cutting him off, “Please. When I came back, he was gone. His… body. And I know he’s here. He deserves a funeral, at least. I deserve it.”

She needed to say goodbye.

She waited as the receptionist talked on the phone as if she couldn’t hear him.

She just wanted to say goodbye.

“Through the doors, down the hall, two lefts and a right.” She was told, and she followed the directions, not even waiting for them to open the doors for her.

_ Director. _

“Wanda Maximoff. It’s an honor to meet you. Truely.”

“Who are you?” She asked, confused. Carol Danvers had told her to expect a woman, Monica Rambeau. She’d been blipped, like Wanda, but should have been instated as the Director of SWORD, like her mother, the founder, had wanted. It had been almost three weeks.

“Director Tyler Hayward.”

It looked like Danvers had been wrong.

“I understand you’re here to see the Vision, to recover his body, that is, is that right?”

“Well, I’m his next of Kin.” She said.

That had been another thing she’d found amongst his things. He’d had their whole future planned out. If only...

“I understand.” Hayward said, “I’d like to show you something.”

“And then you’ll give him to me?” She asked.

He didn’t say yes, instead he looked at her with pity.

“Please, just come with me.”

She wasn’t sure what he was showing her, at first. A bunch of parts, wires, people working on something.

“What is this? Why are you showing me this?” She turned back round to face Hayward.

“Because you asked to see it.”

She had asked to see  _ Vision _ .

That mess of wires and parts couldn’t be the man she loved.

She turned back to the wall of glass, taking in every part. She could see fingers, a knee…

No.

They were tearing an arm apart at the elbow.

No.

His chest was broken open, his wires spread like veins in an anatomy textbook.

That couldn’t be her Vision.

A worker moved and she got a look at his face. Lifeless.

What were they doing to him?

“Stop,” She said without conscious thought, “Stop.”

She felt like she was trapped, the glass the only thing between her and Vision’s body

“Stop it!” She said passionately, begging.

“What are you doing to him?” She cried, turning to Hayward. She didn’t even care if he saw her tears, he deserved to see them, to see how much this was hurting her.

“We’re dismantling the most sophisticated, sentient weapon ever made.” He answered.

No, he was ripping apart a person’s corpse.

Desecrating it.

“Vision’s not a  _ weapon _ , you can’t do this!”

“In fact, it is our legal and ethical obligation.”

“I  _ just  _ want to bury him.” She pleaded, “That’s all I want.”

“Are you  _ sure _ ?” He asked.

“Excuse me?” She spat through gritted teeth, unsure, exactly, what he was trying to imply.

“Not everyone has the kind of power that could bring their soulmate back online.”

She didn’t.

“Forgive me. Back to Life.”

Did she?

“No, I can’t do that.” She answered for herself, “It’s… that’s not why I’m here.”

Why had he had to implant that idea into her head? Why was he letting her hope?

She just wanted to say goodbye.

“Okay,” Hayward said, backing down, and she breathed a sigh of relief. He had to be about to let her do what she wanted.

“But I can’t let you take three-billion dollars worth of vibranium just to put it in the ground.”

Oh. She turned to look at Vis again, even though it hurt to see him like that.

“So the best I can do is let you say goodbye to him here.”

“He’s all that I have.” She pleaded, one last time.

“Well, that’s just it, Wanda.” Hayward replied, “He isn’t yours.”

Oh, but he  _ is _ hers.

She broke the glass separating them and floated down. Uncaring about the guns aimed at her as she looked at Vision’s torn apart form.

“Fall back.” Hayward told his soldiers.

She couldn’t feel him.

No matter how close she got, no matter how much she pushed her powers.

“I can’t feel you.” She sobbed, looking into his grey, empty eyes.

She had once seen a whole life within those eyes.

“I can’t feel you.” She repeated, smiling sadly at the revelation.

She had known that would be the resolution to this hunt. She had expected it. But it didn’t hurt any less.

In fact, it hurt more, seeing him like this. It hurt more, having Hayward implant just the tiniest amount of hope.

She left SWORD with nothing of what she came for.

The plot of land was a three hour drive from the SWORD base on the outskirts of Washington DC.

Westview, New Jersey.

It was rundown, and every house could use a bit of TLC. But a lot of America looked like that, currently, a side effect of half of life being snapped from existence. She could see what it must have been like when Vision had bought the plot of land. Like something out of a sitcom.

It was a small town, probably a tight knit community. Everyone was currently wearing frowns but she could imagine them with smiles. There was a grocery store, a town square, a cinema, a pool.

It had potential. It just needed a little love.

Their plot was the only one without a house on it. The foundations were there, though, just ready to be built on top of.

She could imagine it.

She could imagine a life there with Vision.

No problems.

Only silly little shenanigans.

No fighting, no battles, no war.

Just love.

It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair.

She sunk to the earth in the middle of the foundation and let her tears fall, sobbing.

She had lost  _ everything  _ in her life.

Everything had been taken from her.

Her parents.

Her freedom.

Her brother.

Her city.

Her home.

Her love.

And now her right to mourn.

She had  _ just _ wanted to bury him. To say _ goodbye _ .

She had been holding it all in for over a decade. All her frustration, all her anger, all her grief, and guilt, and sadness. She’d been pushing it down, and pushing it down. Hiding it away to deal with later.

It was later now.

Suddenly it felt like it was too much to bear, burning in her chest.

So she let it out.

She screamed against it.

Anguish.

What was happening to her?

Red power washed through her and her thoughts became muddied, jumbled, confused. Reality itself seemed out of control as she screamed out her anguish.

Red, and grey - like Vision’s lifeless body - around her her vision of the future started to become real.

The Petrie Family’s home from  _ The Dick Van Dyke Show _ seemed to be coming into focus. Or at least akin to it. Black and White and straight out of the early 60s.

She couldn’t control it.

She couldn’t stop it.

Her powers raced through her as if strengthened by her grief, by her unconscious will, her dreams.

She tried to stop it, to force it down.

But it burst free once more.

What was she doing?

How was she doing this?

What was happening to her?

Amongst the red sparks of power, of  _ reality _ , came gold. Warm, inviting, familiar.

It converged together in one place, knitting itself into a familiar image.

She screamed against the pain of creation and finally stood upright again.

Vision.

Dressed like a 1960s sitcom husband.

But it was  _ Vision _ .

She could _ feel him _ .

As she walked towards him she felt herself slipping into the dream.

“Wanda, Welcome home.”

Home...

It was a dream she’d been having for years.

A house in the suburbs.

A pretty dress.

A loving husband.

No more wars, no more poverty, just silly little shenanigans that resolved themselves in the end.

A sitcom.

All that was missing was a couple of kids and a dog.

She let herself dream.

Let herself grieve.

Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression... 

If it happened to turn into a nightmare she fixed it.

Until she couldn’t anymore.

“Where are the Twins?” She asked Agnes, a sense of unease cementing itself in her mind.

“Oh, they’re probably just playing in the basement.” Agnes replied, nonchalantly.

But still, something didn’t feel  _ right. _

So much of her life recently had felt off…

She needed to find Billy and Tommy.

She pushed herself from the couch and made her way into the basement.

“Boys?” She called.

The basement didn’t feel safe. She wasn’t sure she wanted her kids playing down there.

It felt dangerous.

As she descended down the stairs they creaked with every step. She could almost imagine the eerie music one would find in a horror movie.

There were trees. Vines. Just growing out of the floor.

“Tommy?” She called through the vine covered doorway.

There was a weird draft.

The walls were made of stone, looking more like a castle than a suburban basement.

She was meant to be  _ safe  _ here. In this dream of a life. Things were going wrong though.  _ A SWORD agent, a drone. _ An imposter as a brother, her husband not wanting to be near her, their dog dying, and now her two boys vanishing without a trace. Try as she might she couldn’t wish the nightmares away anymore.

“Billy?” She called, a sense of dread settling in her bones.

A panic almost overwhelmed her.

_ I want them to be safe. _

She wished as she walked into the room.

The room definitely didn’t belong in suburbia.

Weird carvings, demonic images, skulls…

And a glowing book.

“Wanda, Wanda.” Agnes said, coming into her view and stroking the rabbit.

“You didn’t think you were the only magical girl in town, did you?” Agnes asked.

Agnes moved her fingers and the door to the room slammed shut.

“The name’s Agatha Harkness, lovely to meet you dear!” She continued, full of false cheer. Her eyes glowed purple.

“She does look shocked to meet the real us, doesn’t she?” Agnes,  _ Agatha, _ said to the rabbit with a chuckle.

Wanda tried to read her mind, tried to figure out what was happening. Maybe she could see where she had taken the boys. Where she had taken her children.

“Oh, that’s adorable!” Agatha laughed, “My thoughts are not available to you, toots. They never ever were. So don’t go giving yourself a migraine. We’ve got work to do.”

“Where are my children?” Wanda pressed, her assumed American accent slipping.

“‘Where are my children?’” Agatha mocked. “Oof, that accent really comes and goes doesn’t it?”

“Where are they?” She demanded, powering up, ready to blast Agatha with her powers.

But nothing happened.

Why weren’t her powers working? Why couldn’t she feel the energy?

“Oh, you’re magic’s no good here.” Agatha told her, smug. Before her hands moved, a shock of purple light. She forced Wanda’s hands behind her back, lifted her up off of the ground and towards her.

The panic, the lack of ability to leave, left Wanda gasping for breath.

“Didn’t you notice? Basic protection spell, one on each wall.”

Wanda looked at the symbols again.

Magic? Spells?

“No? Nothing? These are runes, Wanda. In a given space, only the witch that cast the runes can use her magic.” Agatha explained, as if to a child. “How do you not know the fundamentals?”

“Who are you?” Wanda asked. What was going on?

“Who are  _ you _ ?” Agatha shot her question back at her. “All those  _ costumes  _ and  _ hairstyles _ . I was so patient. Waiting for you to reveal your true self. I got close, with fake Pietro. Fietro, if you will, but no dice.”

“That was you…” 

“No, it wasn’t  _ literally _ me, just my eyes and ears. A crystalline possession. Necromancy was a non-starter since your brother’s body is on another continent. Not to mention, full of holes.”

Possession? Necromancy?

What was happening?

“But you’re so crippled by your own self doubt that you believed it. Oh, Wanda.”

She hadn’t, he’d always felt wrong, out of place.

But she’d  _ wanted  _ to believe.

So she had let herself.

“When I sensed this place, the afterglow of so many spells cast all at once. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.”

Agatha took a cicada from one of the pillars and started chanting. Latin, Wanda thought, or something close to it at least.

A black and purple glow.

“Mind control, a classic.”

Wanda gasped as she made the cicada move.

“Quick incantation and a feeble psyche and you’re good to go.”

Agatha controlled the cicada to skitter around Wanda’s face.

In her eyes, over her mouth.

The panic was rising, but it had nowhere to go - trapped inside of her.

“Thousands of people under your thumb, all interacting with each other according to complex storylines. Well, that’s something special, baby.”

She grabbed the cicada from Wanda’s cheek.

“Of course, there’s transmutation.”

She chanted again in latin.

A black and purple glow.

And suddenly the cicada was a bird.

“Years of study to achieve even the smallest convincing illusion.”

What was going on?

“But Westview through your lens, Wanda?” She grabbed the bird from the air. “Every little detail in place down to the crown molding! You’re even running illusions  _ miles away  _ at the edge of town! Magic on Autopilot.”

Her powers weren’t, couldn’t be, magic. They came from experiments, science.

“What’s your secret, sister?”

She flung the bird, which turned back into a cicada mid air, at the rabbit. And it ate it.

Wanda couldn’t look away. Panic, fear, Agatha’s power, freezing her in place.

“Listen, I need you…Hey, Wanda?” She turned to look at Agatha. “I need you to tell me how you did this.”

“I didn’t do anything.” She confessed, “I’m not-”

Agatha flung her from side to side, into the walls, hard.

“I tried to be gentle.” Agatha said, as Wanda panted in pain. “To nudge you awake from this ridiculous fantasy.”

Her life, her  _ home _ , was not a fantasy, it couldn’t be.

It had to be real.

_ I want it to be real. _

“But you would rather fall apart than face your truth.”

This was her truth. 

This was her dream come true.

“You left me no choice. What was it you said to your not-brother? Hmm? All you could recall was the feeling…”

Emptiness.

“You felt empty, alone.”

No.

“Endless nothingness.”

She just wanted to go home.

“Let’s start there.”

A door glowed with Agatha’s purple light.

“It’s been fun playing pretend for a while, hasn’t it, Wanda?” Agatha plucked a hair from the top of her head and chanted again.

It floated toward the doorway and it transformed.

She knew that door. She hadn’t seen it since she was 10 years old.

“It’s time to look at some real reruns.”

She let Wanda fall to the cold stone floor and she gasped against the panic.

“All right, let’s go.” Agatha said, walking towards the doorway.

“No.” Wanda refused, not moving, frozen.

She wanted to just go home.

_ I want to go home. _

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did you forget who’s got your children stashed away in her bewitched basement?”

Wanda glared at her, wishing she had her powers.

“Mom!”

Tommy…

“MOM! Help us!”

Billy…

Her hatred for Agatha morphed into fear for her children.

Their begging was coming from the doorway.

“That’s right.” Agatha said as she stood, and the door opened.

Wanda was 10.

Shenanigans.

_ The Dick Van Dyke Show. _

An explosion.

Stark.

A hand, reaching out.

_ I want the bomb to not explode. I want us to be safe. _

Agatha pulled her out from under the bed.

“Did you stop that bomb?”

“What?” Wanda panted, disoriented.

“You used a probability hex.”

“No, I…” She cut herself off.

**_Denial._ **

“It just never went off, It was… it was defective. We didn’t know that.”

_ I want the bomb to not explode. I want us to be safe. _

“We were, we were trapped.”

“For how long?”

She had gotten so  _ tired _ . The bomb had started to blink faster. And faster. And faster.

_ I want the bomb to not explode. I want us to be safe. _

“Two days.”

“Huh. So much  _ trauma _ ...” Agatha said. She just… walked around the room, as if it wasn’t a place of nightmares for Wanda.

It was eerily silent.

Devoid of the screams she remembered. Just the wind whistling through the fallen wall. Ash falling, a slow red blinking.

“...and yet you were as safe as kittens the whole time.”

Everything was so  _ vivid _ .

A memory made  _ real _ .

She felt numb to it, chilled to the bone.

“So what I see here is a baby witch, obsessed with sitcoms and years of therapy ahead of her. Doesn’t explain your recent hijinks. Where’d you get the big guns, Wanda?”

A door emerged, armoured, dark, locked.

Familiar.

“I don’t wanna go back there.” Wanda begged.

“I know you don’t, but it’s good medicine, Angel.” Agatha told her, almost kindly. “The only way forward is back.”

The door unlocked. It opened.

As if compelled Wanda walked through it.

“Don’t be scared, you already lived it once.”

Wanda was a volunteer.

She was helping her country.

Changing the world.

“ _ Wanda Maximoff, Volunteer. _ ”

She reached out a hand.

The scepter rattled and shook.

This time she didn’t pass out right away, instead she saw her dream.

The gem flew towards her.

She reached out a hand.

The Mind Stone released itself from its casing.

Golden light pushing her backwards.

She forced her eyes open, compelled to look.

A glowing red silhouette.

It wasn’t Vision she had seen it that dream.

It wasn’t a dream.

It was…

It was  _ herself _ . Her powers glowing around her. Reality itself. Red.

She passed out.

An isolation cell.

_ The Brady Bunch. _

_ Off. _

“So, our little orphan Wanda got up close and personal with an Infinity Stone that amplified what would have otherwise died on the vine. The broken pieces of you are adding up, buttercup. I have a theory, but I need more.”

Another familiar door.

Warmer this time, with better memories associated with it.

She didn’t even hesitate to go through.

Wanda was an Avenger.

_ Malcolm in The Middle _ .

The first home she and Vision ever shared.

_ Vision... _

“What is grief, if not love persevering?”

Her first laugh since Pietro...

They disappeared, the room empty.

Like the void inside her chest.

Her heart had been ripped out. Again.

“So, to recap. Parent’s dead.”

_ Mama, Papa... _

She gasped.

“Brother dead.”

_ Pietro… _

Tears welled.

“Vision dead.”

_ Vision… _

Tears fell.

“What happened when he wasn’t there to pull you back from the darkness, Wanda?”

**_Anger._ **

“I can’t do this anymore.”

“Come on, Wanda! You’re on the precipice, you’re  _ right there _ ! Tell me how you did it.”

She scratched at her arms, her limbs began to feel cold, numb.

“Vision was  _ gone _ . But you wanted him  _ back _ .”

“I wanted him back.”

The door materialised and she was through it within seconds.

Wanda was grieving.

She woke up and he was  _ gone _ .

She  _ just _ wanted a funeral.

She  _ just  _ wanted to say goodbye.

Hayward.

**_Bargaining._ **

“I can’t feel you.”

Wanda was alone.

Wanda was empty.

Westview was  _ sad _ . In need of help, of love. Devastated by the blip.

A plot of land in the middle of suburbia.

_ To grow old in. _

A heart.

A home.

Ripped away from them.

**_Depression._ **

Her grief began to overwhelm her.

_ Creation. Mind-control. Transmutation.  _

Studio lights.

Black and white suddenly in colour.

An empty studio audience.

Agatha started to clap. It echoed around the set.

What had she  _ done _ ?

_ Creation. Mind-control. Transmutation.  _

How had she done it?

“Bravo!”

Agatha disappeared.

She was  _ alone _ .

“MOM! MOM HELP US!”

“MOM HELP! PLEASE!”

No.

She couldn’t lose anyone else.

Not again.

She rushed through the stage door and stumbled into daylight. She was back in Westview.

“Mom!”

Agatha flew high above the street, tendrils of… of  _ magic _ , around Billy and Tommy’s throats.

She couldn’t lose anyone else.

“I know what you are.”

“Mom!” Billy screamed. The tendrils tightened.

Her powers were back, no longer taken from her.

“It’s okay, baby, it’s okay.” She said, trying to sooth, to calm.

Herself and the twins.

“You have no  _ idea _ how dangerous you are.”

Ultron. Sokovia. Lagos. The Accords.

Oh, she knew.

She’d seen it first hand.

She’d killed and injured so many people, on accident, of course, but it had been  _ her _ . Her actions.

She knew how dangerous she was.

But this, her home, this couldn’t be dangerous.

Look at Westview now, clean, bright, happy. A perfect image of the American Dream. Of Suburbia.

“You’re supposed to be a myth.”

So were aliens.

So was  _ magic _ .

“A being capable of spontaneous creation, and here you are, making breakfast for dinner.”

“Let  _ go  _ of my  _ children _ .” She demanded, drawing on even more of her power...

“Oh, yes, your children. And Vision, and this whole little life you’ve made. This is Chaos Magic, Wanda. And that makes  _ you  _ The Scarlet Witch.”

“My powers work out here, or did you forget?” Wanda taunted.

“No dear, I’m counting on it.”

The boys tried to use her temporary distraction to escape, but were pulled back. Falling.

“NO!” Wanda screamed, shooting a blast directly at Agatha.

“Go to your room.” She commanded the boys.

“No way, we’re staying with you.” Tommy refused.

“Come on, Mom, we can help!” Billy argued.

“Listen to your mother boys!” Agatha taunted.

“Now!”

Tommy whisked them away and to safety.

Wanda shot another blast at Agatha, who doubled over before standing again.

She held the blast in her palm, a ball of red.

“I take power from the undeserving. It’s kinda my thing.”

Purple overtook the red.

Her hand was going grey.

She was blasted off of her feet.

How could she fight an enemy who could take her powers away from her. Who grew stronger with every blast?

“You’re clearly in over your little red head. So why don’t you surrender your magic to someone who knows what to do with it?”

Wanda pushed down her panic and stood.

“And I’ll let you keep this pathetic little corner of the world all to yourself.” 

Agatha rose into the air.

“What do you say?”

No.

She picked up her car from her driveway and flung it towards Agatha and into the side of a house.

Her powers may make her dangerous. They may make people fear her. But they were a part of her and she didn’t want them to be taken away.

She walked towards the destruction, towards Agatha.

But Agatha wasn’t there, all that was left of her were her shoes. Like in  _ The Wizard of Oz _ .

The witch was not dead.

She stood, and gasped at the reflection in the mirror.

She turned and took in the figure in front of her. It’s mind was so familiar, so close to…

“Vision?”

But it couldn’t be. Vision was…

Hayward had him.

Had Hayward managed to bring him back online?

“Is it really you?” She asked it and it’s hand came to the side of her face, pushing her hair back as it searched her eyes.

She could feel him. Kind of. Barely. But it  _ was  _ Vision. Or at least a part of him. The logical part, JARVIS, Banner, Stark, Thor, even Ultron.

Maybe Bruce had been right all those weeks - years? - ago. Maybe even without the Mind Stone Vision could live on.

Maybe SWORD had figured out how.

“Wanda.” His voice was infinitesimally deeper, but unmistakably Vision.

She pressed her face into his hand and let herself believe, let herself hope.

He’d come back.

He brought his other hand up to her face.

But something was wrong.

He squeezed.

She struggled to break free.

“And I was told you were powerful.”

This wasn’t Vision.

Bruce had been wrong.

Without the Mind Stone Vision was just… code. Intelligent code, but rewritable.

Without the Mind Stone he wasn’t  _ Vision. _

She screamed against the pain in her head. And in her heart.

Her Vision came to the rescue and she dropped to the ground panting.

“Where are the boys?” He asked.

She felt so relieved to see him.

“There in the house. Safe.” She assured him. “Vision. I should have told you everything. The moment I realised what I had done.”

“It’s all right, Wanda. I know why you made this world. But this…”

“I can fix it.” She said.

“Can you?”

She had created it, so she had to.

“Oh, this is awkward!” Agatha taunted as she emerged in a puff of purple magic, “Your ex and your boyfriend together at the same party. Who are you gonna  _ choose _ , Wanda?”

“Vision, this is our home.” She said, looking towards her Vision and away from SWORD’s.

“Then let’s fight for it.” He agreed.

She flew after Agatha.

She would always fight for her home.

She lost her around the Town Square.  _ The heart of the city. _

Everything looked so normal. People didn’t even look phased as she floated from the sky.

Mind-Control. Transmutation. But she couldn’t believe it.  _ Wouldn’t  _ believe it.

They all seemed so happy. Why did Agatha seem to think this was a bad thing?

Westview was perfect.

“Don’t shoot, I’m just the messenger!” Dennis the mailman chuckled.

She was knocked off of her feet.

“Wanda, you’ve never been up against another witch before. Did you know, there’s an entire chapter devoted to you in the Darkhold?”

The Darkhold?

“That’s the book of the damned.”

Okay, so admittedly that didn’t sound  _ great _ .

“‘The Scarlet Witch is not born, she is forged.’” Agatha quoted as the book materialised in front of her. “‘She has no coven, no need for incantation.”

“I’m not a witch, I don’t cast spells!” Wanda denied, even against all the evidence around her.

It was  _ science  _ that did this to her. Not  _ Magic. _

“No one taught me  _ MAGIC _ !”

“Your power exceeds that of the Sorcerer Supreme.”

Wanda remembered that man who had found her clutching at the dirt in Wakanda - empty, confused, and alone - and told her there was more to the battle she’d just lost.

“It’s your destiny to destroy the world.”

No. Everything she had done in her life was to  _ save  _ it.

“I’m not what you say I am!”

“Oh, really?”

Agatha chanted, and Dottie froze. She blinked confusedly, gasping. She dropped her shopping and walked towards Wanda.

“Wanda?”

“Dottie?”

“My name is Sarah.” Dottie corrected. She radiated fear. “I have a daughter, she’s eight. Maybe she could be friends with your boys. If you like that storyline.”

What was Agatha doing to her?

“Or, uh, the school bully even!” Dottie continued, “Really anything, if you could just let her out of her room. If I could just  _ hold her _ . Please.”

“What are you doing to her?” Wanda asked Agatha as Dottie’s face crumpled. “You’re making her say this.”

“She’s your meat puppet, I just cut her strings.”

Agatha chanted again and around the Town Square people hunched over as if in pain. The dropped what they were holding, looked around in confusion. As if waking up from a vivid dream.

Or a nightmare.

They made their way towards  _ her _ .

They looked scared, but determined. 

“I don’t recognise my face in the mirror. My voice when I speak.” Herb was saying. “I used to try to resist you, but now? I can’t remember _ why _ . Do you?”

“My husband’s on a business trip.” Beverly interjected, “Tell him I love him and not to come back here  _ ever _ .”

“I’m exhausted.” Dennis said.

“No, you’re  _ fine _ .” Wanda promised him, desperate. “You’re fine. You’re all… You’re all going to be fine.”

She had to save these people. She was an Avenger. A hero.

“When you let us sleep.” Norm said, “We have  _ your  _ nightmares.”

Red flashing light. Experiments. Hunting down HYDRA agents. Lagos. Vision. Wakanda. Destruction.

“No, that’s not true. I’ve kept you  _ safe  _ in here.”

She kept people  _ safe. _

“You- you feel- you feel at  _ peace _ .”

She’d made Westview  _ better. _

“We feel your pain.” Dottie spat at her.

“No.”

“Your grief is poisoning us!” Shot Mrs. Hart.

“No, stop!”

Her panic was rising. She wanted to run and hide. She felt frozen as everyone spoke on top of one another. Overwhelming. Wave after wave of  _ PANIC. _

She couldn’t breathe.

She screamed out as it all got too much.

Her panic left her in waves of red. And she gasped in breath after breath.

_ I want them all to STOP! _

They did.

They fell to the floor gasping for air.

Red around their throats and her own panic mirrored in their eyes.

No.

Not again.

She didn’t want to  _ hurt  _ anyone!

_ I want them to… _ She thought against her panic.

“Stop, I’m sorry.”

_ I want them to breathe. _

The red around their throats faded.

“If you won’t let us go.Just let us  _ die _ . Please.” Mrs Hart begged.

Her heart constricted in her chest.

“I will…” She stuttered, gasping through the panic. “I will let you go. I will. I will.”

She didn’t want to hurt anyone.

“What’s stopping you?” Agatha taunted from the rooftop. “Use your power and do it now. Heroes don’t torture people.”

Agatha was right.

She knew what she needed to do.

She gathered the waves of panic that surged through her, but instead of pushing them down, she pushed them  _ up _ .

She broke her created reality. It’s borders glowed red.

“Go! All of you! Now! GO!” She shouted against the rush of emotions.

The town flickered like an old TV set. Like a broken TV set. And the town started to scatter.

Agatha was laughing.

“Now you’ll see.”

Wanda didn’t pay her any mind.

She needed to help these people. She needed to let them leave.

Vision crashed to the ground.

It looked like he was coming apart. Pieces of him floating away and disintegrating as he groaned.

He was in pain.

“What?” She sobbed, unable to tear her eyes from him.

“WANDA!” His voice was distorted, like it had been after he’d been stabbed weeks - years? - ago. He was turning to static around the edges. He was in pain, reaching towards her.

What was happening?

“MOM!”

No.

“HELP! MOM!”

They were coming apart too. Disintegrating.

What was  _ happening _ ?

“Now do you see?” Agatha taunted. “You tied your family to this twisted world and now one can’t exist without the other.”

No.

She needed to save these people.

But she needed to save her family too.

“Mom!” The twin’s voices were distorted too.

“Boys!”

No.

“Save Westview, or save your family.”

Why did she have to choose?

“Mom, help! Please!”

She closed the reality back around them.

She couldn’t say goodbye.

Not yet.

“Mom, mom! Are you okay?”

She took her children into her arms. Vision’s arms wrapped around all of them.

Agatha started chanting above them.

“NO!”

She had to protect her family.

She could feel Agatha taking even more of her power.

Her  _ magic _ .

She screamed against the pain.

Her hands were turning grey. Skeletal.

“Mom, are you okay?” Billy asked her, and she nodded, trying to reassure him.

“How  _ sweet. _ ” Agatha taunted.

The White Vision turned up, and then SWORD. Everything was going wrong.

She needed a plan.

“Listen boys,” Vision said, “Your mother and I never really prepared you for this.”

“But you were born for it.” Wanda finished.

Because they  _ were _ . They were born from her grief, her love, and now she needed to fight back.

She needed to accept everything that happened.

She couldn’t change it. She shouldn’t have even tried to.

“Boys, handle the military.” She told them. “Mommy will be right back.”

She flew up to deal with Agatha.

She had sworn never to give people waking nightmares again, after Sokovia, but she thought this was a special exception.

Agatha’s mind was similar to Thor’s. She had so many years to go through. But it was easier to rifle through them. Witch, or not, Agatha was still Human.

There.

Where it all seemed to begin.

A witch trial.

“The difference between you and me, is that you did this on purpose.”

Nothing Wanda had done to hurt  _ anyone  _ had been on purpose. Not really.

The nightmare turned on her, and she wasn’t even sure if it was Agatha’s doing or her own subconscious.

“Wanda Maximoff. You are a witch.” The corpses were chanting around her.

“You are the  _ Scarlet Witch _ .”

“Told you so!” Agatha taunted. “You can’t win Wanda. Power isn’t your problem, it’s knowledge.”

She felt her power manifest, a crown upon her head. Like a Sokovian Fortune-tellers.

“Give me you power and I will correct the flaws in your original spell. And you, and your family, and the people of Westview can all live together in peace. And noone will ever have to feel this pain again.”

Agatha was lying. Wanda wasn’t stupid.

“Not even you.”

It was tempting to just let herself believe. But she’d let herself believe the wrong people too many times in her life.

She knew what she had to do.

_ We don’t trade lives _ .

But sometimes you had to.

They took their fight to the sky. The borders of her fake reality glowed red around them.

She needed to trick Agatha.

“In a given space, only the witch that cast them can use her magic.”

She had done it, she had won.

“Thanks for the lesson. But I don’t need you to tell me who I am.”

She was Irina and Oleg’s daughter.

She was Pietro’s Twin.

She was Vision’s Wife.

She was Billy and Tommy’s Mother

She was - she now understood, she now accepted - The Scarlet Witch.

**_Acceptance._ **

“Oh God, you don’t know what you’ve done.”

Oh, but she  _ did _ .

She had let go of her fear.

She would learn to understand her power. Her  _ magic. _

It would no longer control  _ her. _

_ She _ would control  _ it _ .

She gently floated herself and Agatha back into the Town square.

“Good girl, so what now? You just gonna lock me up somewhere?”

“No, not ‘somewhere’.” Wanda replied, “Here.”

“‘Here’?”

“Mmm-hmm. I’ll give you the role you chose. The nosy neighbor.”

“No, please.” Agatha begged.

“I’m sorry.” And she was, she knew what it was like to be imprisoned, even somewhere nice. Which was why she was going to take Agatha’s memories away. Warp them and her reality.

“No you’re not, you’re cruel.”

No, this was a kindness.

“You… you have… you have  _ no idea _ what you’ve unleashed.”

She’d unleashed her power, her magic, and she was going to understand it eventually.

“You’re going to need me.”

She was bargaining. She was already grieving the life Wanda was about to rip away from her.

“If I do, I’ll know where to find you.”

“Wait.”

Wanda ignored her pleas. She warped reality.

And Agnes was created.

Transmutation. Mind-control.

On purpose, this time. Controlled.

“Hiya, hon!” Agnes said, “say, that’s some kinda get up you’re wearing…”

She would be happy.

And Wanda would find her if she needed her.

“You live here now. No one will ever bother you.”

“Okey dokey, artichokey!”

Wanda had created herself a friend.

“I’ll be seeing you, Agnes.”

“MOM!” The twins shouted and she gathered them in a hug.

She knew what she had to do, but she’d relish every moment she had with them until then.

“So it would appear that our dream home has been reduced to a fixer upper.” Vision joked at the mess the battle had left behind. “I know you’ll set everything right.”

He knew what she was about to do.

What she needed to do.

Set everything right.

“Just not for us.”

“No.” She agreed, a sad smile as she looked into his eyes. “Not for us.”

“It’s time.”

She remembered the last time he had said that. An alien. A War.

She had refused, back then, hesitated.

She couldn’t hesitate this time.

“Should we head home?”

Home…

She no longer had a home, not for long anyway.

She deserved one last look at it.

“Yeah.”

She started to shrink her self-made reality as they walked home. Her hand in Vision’s, their children in front of them.

A perfect family.

She memorised the streets, the little shops, the houses. She would never forget this home. Like she’d never forgotten the others.

Sokovia. Avengers Compound. Hotels and safehouses.

2800, Sherwood Drive, Westview, New Jersey.

She wondered where home would be next. If she would ever find another home.

Day quickly became night and they tucked the twins into their beds.

“Snug as a bug.” Wanda said, wrapping Billy in a tight hug and pushing the hair from his eyes.

He was so much like her.

Smart and quiet. Logical. The empathetic twin.

“Big day, today.” Vision commented, sitting on Tommy’s bed and taking his hand.

“You’re mother and I…” She could sense him gathering his emotions as he looked towards her and Billy. “Are very proud of you both.”

She smiled in agreement.

“Very proud.” She agreed. “You know, a family is forever. We could never truly leave each other, even if we tried. You know that, right?”

The twins nodded.

She placed a kiss to Billy’s forehead before moving to do the same to Tommy.

She took hold of Vision’s hand as they passed each other. Gathering strength to say goodbye, and giving it too.

She placed a kiss to Tommy’s head.

He was so much like Pietro.

_ Her  _ Pietro.

Headstrong and loud. Mischievous.

“Goodnight, chaps.” Vision said, moving to stand in the doorway, taking them in.

“Goodnight, Dad.” The twins chorused as Wanda joined him.

“Goodnight, Mom.” Billy told her softly.

She turned back to look at them, taking them in one last time. One last memory.

Reality was moving in quickly out the window. A wave of red getting closer and closer.

“Boys,” She said, gaining their attention as she looked away from the windows.

“Thanks for choosing me to be your mom.”

They were her boys.

But she hadn’t created them, not really.

A stalk had brought them, unaffected by her power, her magic.

Two lost souls looking for a home.

And they had chosen  _ her _ . Broken, grief-stricken, and damaged. They had still chosen her.

They smiled at her, and settled into bed.

Reality was shrinking in.

_ I want them both to be okay. _

She wished as she turned off the light.

She closed the door behind her.

_ I need them both to be okay. _

She went around the house turning off the lights as if she was just going to bed for the night.

Vision turned the light back on.

“Oh, I, uh, I read somewhere that it’s bad luck to say goodbye in the dark.” He said.

“No you didn’t.” She caught him in the white lie with a smile. He smiled back.

“No. Perhaps not. Perhaps… I just wanted to see you clearly.”

“And?” She asked.

“And there you are.”

She smiled even against the sadness that overwhelmed her. He’d always been able to see her as she was. Just  _ Wanda _ .

Reality was shrinking in.

They watched it through the window, hands clasped tight.

“Wanda, I know we can’t stay like this. But before I go, I feel I must know. What am I?”

“You,  _ Vision _ ,” She took his face in her hand, “You are the piece of the Mind Stone that lives in me. You are a body of wires and blood and bone that  _ I  _ created. You are my sadness and my hope. But mostly, you’re my  _ love _ .”

He leaned down and kissed her, and she could feel his love - her love echoing back at her.

_ What is grief, if not love persevering? _

A tear fell from his eye. 

This Vision was real, and fake, at the same time.

A manifestation of her grief.

“I have been a voice with no body. A body but not human. And now…” He searched in her eyes. “A memory, made real.”

She let her own tear fall.

“Who knows what I might be next.”

A spark of hope.

“We have said goodbye before.” Vision said, a sense of urgency in his words. “So it stands to reason…”

He trailed off and she gasped around a sob as she took his face in her hands.

“...We’ll say hello again.” She promised.

Reality shrank around them.

It morphed backwards through her reimagined decades, but she didn’t tear her eyes away from Vision.

She watched as he glowed a warm gold. Dematerialising in front of her eyes.

“So long, darling.” He said.

And she was once again alone.

She walked out of her home, back to its foundations.

She walked through the town of Westview, back to it’s rundown nature.

Everyone stared at her.

Afraid.

Only Monica - the SWORD agent - looked understanding.

“They’ll never know what you sacrificed for them.”

“It wouldn’t change how they see me.”

People had been afraid of her since Sokovia, and nothing she did would change that, not really.

“And you? You don’t… you don’t hate me?”

“Given the chance, and given your power? I’d bring my mom back. I know I would.”

Understanding.

“I’m sorry.” Wanda told her, “For all the pain I caused.”

“I know.”

“I don’t understand this power, but I will.”

Sirens.

“Goodbye, Monica.”

“Bye, Wanda.”

She suited up and flew out of the town.

She turned once she got to the outskirts of it and took in one last memory of her home.

Westview, New Jersey.

**Author's Note:**

> **END CREDIT SCENE:**
> 
> There was a place just outside of Sokovia she remembered going to as a young child with her parents and Pietro. There was a lake, and mountains, and so many trees. It was covered in snow at this time of year. Picturesque, beautiful, vast.
> 
> She felt drawn to it now.
> 
> It was the perfect place to hide.
> 
> She knew, already, how to create. So she created a little cabin on the edge of the lake, far away from any civilisation. She read books taken from Agatha’s basement, practiced spells until they became second nature. Which was quickly, maybe too quickly.
> 
> She hadn’t wanted to even touch the Darkhold at first. It’s power scared her, somewhat. But it was the only book she had that mentioned _The Scarlet Witch_. That mentioned _her_. It was the only way she could even begin to understand her power. Her magic.
> 
> It was easier to read it in her _Astral Projection_ form. Safer. If she read it normally her figures went black like Agatha’s had been. Her Astral Projection form, her mind, protected her body from it’s darkness. She had already seen too much darkness in her life and the golden warmth at the back of her mind seemed to almost protect it. So as her mind learnt, her body relaxed and got on with life out in the mountains.
> 
> At the base of Wundagore Mountain she read, and learnt, and began to understand more about herself. More about the magic that was coursing through her veins.
> 
> The Darkhold held many wonders. Dark _and_ Light in nature.
> 
> It was as complicated as it was fascinating.
> 
> “Mom…”
> 
> At first she ignored the calls. Fearing them to be illusions created by the book. But they just got louder.
> 
> “Mom! Help!”
> 
> More persistent.
> 
> “Please, Mom, help!”
> 
> Her children were in trouble.
> 
> And she would do anything to save them.
> 
> \----------
> 
> _Comments are greatly appreciated and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this and Wanda's arc in general._
> 
> _I hope you all liked reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it :)_


End file.
